


As It Seems

by imagining_supernatural



Series: As It Seems [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Drug Addiction, Drugs, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Implied Smut, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Past Drug Use, Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2018-12-12 03:53:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 57,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11728953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagining_supernatural/pseuds/imagining_supernatural
Summary: The world sees Dean Winchester as a playboy businessman, but as his personal assistant, I can see that not everything is as it seems. Dean isn’t as careless as the world thinks, and he isn’t as heartless as his one-night-stands believe. But when he comes bursting into my apartment in the wee hours of morning, on the brink of death, pulling me into his secret James Bond-like mission, I start to see that maybe not everything is as I first thought. Lives inside of lives, the masks people wear, and a new reality to come to grips with. Trying to save the world gets a lot more difficult when the very fabric of world we’re trying to save starts to fray and unravel, and I find myself questioning the foundation of reality as I know it.Is this really the life that I am meant to live?





	1. Chapter 1

**~Reader’s POV~**

          Everyone always told me not to take a personal assistant job where I would have to sign a non-disclosure form that was more than two pages long. Of course, they were mostly thinking about situations like sexual harassment or other things like that. I doubt they imagined a situation where my boss would come bursting through my front door at three in the morning, covered in blood, toss his cell phone to me that had someone yelling on the other end, and remind me about the non-disclosure that I signed before passing out on my couch from blood loss.

          But let's back up a bit.

          Before tonight, I had a perfectly normal life. I'd been working as Dean Winchester's PA for the last several months and the only bad part about my job was turning away the women he slept with and never called. Dean was quite the catch. He was the most eligible bachelor on this side of the Mississippi, a well-renowned businessman with quite the fortune to his name, and once you got past they playboy exterior, he was actually a really nice guy.

          Unfortunately for me, he didn’t let down the playboy exterior around other people too often.

          That meant a lot of teary-eyed women who paraded into the office, begging to see him.

          And that meant that I was really good at telling them they were better off without him.

          "So, do you have any fun plans this weekend that I can ruin with my bad timing?" Dean asked, halfway sitting on my desk. His green eyes sparkled as he referenced two weekends previous when he'd called me with a weekend emergency... when I was halfway naked with my date.

          "Bad timing? I think you were trying to warn me that Derek was going to turn out to be a giant dick."

          "You should've listened," he teased.

          I definitely couldn't pass up the chance to needle him a bit. After being his PA, at his beck and call for so long, we'd gotten to the point in our relationship where he wasn't just my boss, but I also considered him my friend as well. "Yeah, I mean what kind of guy sleeps with a girl once then never calls her again?"

          "The kind of guy you should definitely stay away from." If I didn't know him so well, I would have thought he was completely joking, but there was an undercurrent of seriousness to his voice.

          I knew him well enough to read between the lines. He was warning me away from himself.

          It was unnecessary, really. We might tease each other and dance around the edges of the sexual tension, but both of us are completely professional. No dating in the workplace.

          "I'll take that into consideration. But, to answer your question, I'll be in town for a lazy weekend all weekend. I don't wanna sound like a loser, but if you need me I don't have anything else going on, so you won't be interrupting anything."

          "I think you deserve a lazy weekend after how hard I work you all week."

          "You think this is stressful? Please, working for you is a walk in the park after working for Donovan DuPont. He was—" It probably wasn't good to trash talk past employers in my present job. "—a lot more demanding."

          "Nice save," Dean winked and stood up. "Well, if you want to get started on that lazy weekend early, you can head out. I'll be leaving around six for a meeting across town and hopefully won't be back until Monday."

          "You mean you don't live in this office?" I acted shocked. He just laughed and walked into his office.

          A few hours later, after I'd made a dent in the plethora of waiting emails, Dean came out of his office again. "Why don't you take off? The rest of those can wait until Monday."

          "It's only five." It was a rare day that I left the office before seven.

          "Well if you'd rather stay for a few more hours..." He trailed off with a grin. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down there, cowboy. I'll get a few more of these emails out of the way then I will _definitely_ head out early."

          After he retreated back to his office, I sat back in my chair and my eyes unfocused as I considered the last few minutes. He'd seemed pretty insistent that I leave early. Why? I had the feeling that he needed me out of the office for some reason.

          That was crazy.

          Right?

          Definitely, I decided as I got back to work. A few minutes later, though, three large men walked in from the elevator. Apparently, Dean's behavior made me paranoid, because my initial though upon seeing them was: _Mafia._

          Crazy. Again.

          "Hello, how can I help you?" I greeted pleasantly.

          The man in the middle ambled over and eyed me up and down, as much as he could with the desk in front of me. "Hello darling." Oh. A British accent. That was new. "My, my. Squirrel does know how to hire the right kind of employees. Really spruces up this office."

_Squirrel?_

          "Do you have an appointment with Mr. Winchester?" All of the snarky comebacks to his sexist remark flew through my head, but unfortunately none of them were professional enough for the workplace.

          "Indeed I do. The name's Crowley."

          Well, I knew for a fact that there was no Crowley on Dean's calendar. Still though, I went through the pretense of checking. "I don't see you on the schedule."

          "Call him and let him know I’m here."

 _Can I get a please?_ "Have a seat and I'll see if he has time for you."

          "I don't wait, darling."

          I fixed him with my most steely gaze and a curt smile. "Today you do. Mr. Winchester is a very busy man. Please, have a seat."

          The stare-down lasted for a few moments before he finally inclined his head in surrender. "Very well."

          I waited until Crowley and his two goons had taken their seats before picking up the phone and paging Dean's office phone. "I give you an early night and you choose to stay," he greeted with humor. "Can't get enough of me, can you?"

          "It's for your own good. You'd crash and burn without me. Besides, there's a Mr. Crowley here. He insists on seeing you."

          Icy silence was all the reply that I got. It wasn't too hard to read between the lines there.

          I lowered my voice to a whisper. "Do you want me to call security?"

          "No." That answer was emphatic and immediate. Something was definitely up. "I’ll be right out for him. But you should really pack up for the weekend before I find some other project for you to get started on.”

          Now I knew that I wasn’t imagining it. Dean really _did_ want me out of the office. And I was getting a bad feeling about these guys. “I really don’t have anything better to do this weekend. If you want me to stick around with security on speed dial—“

          “Go home, Y/N. You deserve the extra few hours to relax.”

          Friend or not, Dean was still my boss. It wasn’t my place to argue. “Alright. I’m just a call away.”

          “I appreciate it, sweetheart. Take care.”

          The bad feeling didn’t leave me all night. It was there when I woke up on Saturday without any texts from Dean. Usually I had at least two reminder texts for something he needed me to do before Monday. And all throughout my horror movie marathon with my pals Ben and Jerry, I still felt that overlaying sense of apprehension that had nothing to do with the genre of movie I picked.

          Of course, all of my paranoia proved right when I heard frantic knocking on my door at three in the morning, waking me from where I’d fallen asleep during the last movie.

          And that’s where I was now. Dean passed out on my couch, his phone in my hand. Blood soaking into my cushions and my mind wondering how I’m going to clean that up later.

          “Dean? Dean what happened? Where are you?” The tinny voice pierced my thoughts and I slowly brought the phone up to my ear.

          “Uh, who are you?”

          “Who are _you_? Where’s Dean?”

          “Bleeding out on my couch—oh my God, he’s bleeding out. I’ve gotta do something!” Adrenaline started coursing through my body and I start to realize the reality of the situation. Something had happened that made my boss show up, looking like an old punching bag.

          This was _bad_ and that was an understatement.

          I dropped the phone and immediately started searching Dean’s body for the source of the blood. Vaguely I can hear the person on the other end of the phone, so I put it on speakerphone and keep tearing off Dean’s ruined clothes.

          “Where is Dean?”

          “I don’t know if I should tell you.” After nearly a year of protecting him from overzealous women and greedy businessmen, it’s second nature to be paranoid of anything that could put Dean at a disadvantage.

          The blood flow was heavier around his abdomen, so I ran to grab scissors and cut his shirt off.

          “I’m Sam, his brother. You can trust me.” My mind instantly flashed to the photo of the Winchester family that Dean kept in his office and to the floppy-haired younger brother standing beside Dean and his parents. “Who are you?”

          I’d heard that excuse before. Well, not the brother one. But plenty of paparazzi pretended to be related just to get in close with Dean. “Brother. Sam. Right.” My mind went on the fritz. I knew that I had to confirm his identity, and I also was wondering if I should call the police, but obviously I had to focus on keeping Dean alive. There was just so much! “Sam, if that’s you, then you should know why Dean’s heat rattles in his car.”

          “Legos,” was the immediate answer, and I didn’t have the brain power or will to ask another question and confirm even further. I just had to trust my gut and get this Sam to come help.

          “Come to 4651 North 184 East, apartment 759. He just barged in and passed out. I’m trying to stop the bleeding right now, and—my God, it looks like a bullet hole.”

          By that point, I was just falling back on all of my knowledge of first aid from the movies and shows I’d seen and praying the writers of those shows hadn’t taken too many artistic liberties. Pressure. Put pressure on the wound. I tore up his shirt and tied it around his torso, trying to tighten it, but my fingers were too slick with his blood.

          “Sam, hurry. I don’t know what to do and I’m scared that I’m going to do something wrong and—oh no, I don’t think he’s breathing. I don’t think _I’m_ breathing. What do I do?”

          “Hey now, calm down. What’s your name?”

          “Y/N. I’m Y/N and I’m, well, I think I’m gonna pass out too.”

          “Y/N. You’re his PA, right?”

          I nodded, which didn’t help since he couldn’t see me. But all of this blood was making me light-headed and I couldn’t exactly come up with words at the moment, so I just hoped that he would get the gist.

          “Look, Dean hired you because you can take the pressure. He must have known that you can keep secrets and you work well under stressful circumstances—“

          “He is _dying_ on my couch! This isn’t just a _stressful circumstance_ and I definitely didn’t sign on for this when I accepted the job! I’m not a _nurse,_ Sam! I can handle irate customers and snotty highbrows, but I can’t fix a bullet wound!”

          He sighed loud enough that I heard it over my pounding heart.

          “Put pressure on the wound,” Sam said calmly. “I’m a few minutes away. Just keep pressure on it and I’ll take over when I get there.”

          “There’s no way he’s gonna be fine after losing this much blood.”

          “He _will_ be. He’s got you and he’s got me. We’ll get him through this.”

          Dean was so pale. He was usually so bright and full of life, but now he looked more like a corpse. “Hurry, Sam.”

          Sam stayed on the phone, but we didn’t talk. Still, it was comforting to hear his breathing and muttered curses at the drivers around him. At least I knew that I wasn’t completely alone.

          My eyes travelled from the blood-soaked shirt I was pressing into the wound, up over his muscular torso and at his blanched face. What had happened in the past thirty hours? Did this have to do with the Crowley character? Dean definitely wasn’t going to be able to go back to work on Monday with this wound. I was going to have to start making excuses and moving all of his appointments.

          Was Dean going to be able to go back to work at all? Assuming he lived, someone had enough of a problem with him to put a bullet into his gut. It wouldn’t be safe for him to go back into the public eye.

          “Y/N, you there?” Sam asked.

          I shifted slightly and somehow managed to stop the blood flow even more. “Yeah. How far away are you?”

          “I’m here. I’m heading up now. What apartment number did you say?”

          I repeated the number and started calming down. Sam was almost here. He would take over and save his brother’s life. Everything would be okay. This nightmare could be—

          A loud crack made me scream and duck down behind the couch. My movements made Dean start bleeding again, but I couldn’t find a way to remedy that problem and stay alive as well because _someone was shooting a gun in my apartment!_ The front door burst open and a large man came running in. He had a calm look in his eye—this wasn’t the first time he’d killed someone. I was frozen as he raised the gun and pointed it straight at me.

          Two quick shots in succession made me scream and flinch again, but when I opened my eyes, surprised that I was still alive, I saw the man fall to the ground. Dean’s tall brother entered the room carefully, keeping an eye out for anything else.

          “Oh, my God, Sam. What the hell is going on?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam’s arrival takes some of the stress off your shoulders, but the answers that you get don’t give you peace of mind

**~Reader’s POV~**

          Sam’s eyes snapped over to me just before he came and knelt beside me. Quickly and efficiently, he surveyed Dean for wounds before standing up. “Where’s your first aid stuff?”

          “Bathroom. Second door to the left. Did you kill him? Is there a dead man in my living room?”

          “There’s about to be two if you don’t calm down and help me with Dean.”

          Dean.

          Right.

          I'll be honest, the next few minutes were sort of a blur. I did what Sam told me to do and I purposefully didn't think too hard about anything, much less the body of the hitman laying just a few feet away from me. It wasn't until Dean was all stitched up—or until Sam told me he was all stitched up because hell if I knew when to tell when someone was all stitched up from a bullet wound—and his eyes fluttered open that I started coming back to myself.

          "Dean?" At my voice, he opened his eyes further and I breathed a sigh of relief. He was alive. "Hey there. You lost a lot of blood, but Sam got you all stitched up."

          "Sam?" He croaked.

          "Right here." Sam appeared over my shoulder. "We've gotta get you out of here."

          Dean started to sit up and I nearly had a heart attack. I'd watched enough doctor's shows to know that he should probably definitely take it easy for a while. "Whoa, whoa, slow down there. You were just _shot_."

          Of course, he didn't listen to me and continued to sit up with Sam's help. "Not the first time, sweetheart."

          "Not the—what?" I was really starting to wonder if I really knew the man I'd been working for for a year. "What the hell is going on?"

          "Explanation later. We've gotta get out of here now. And you're coming with us."

          "Excuse me?" I know I'm his PA and all, but tonight was just incredibly too weird for me to think of it like that. All I knew what that my life seemed to have been turned upside down in the last hour and now there was someone ordering me around. I didn’t like that, but a glance at the dead body reminded me that I didn’t exactly have room to let my feelings in right now.

          "Crowley saw you at the office and you made quite the impression on him. You're a target for him to get to me now. Sorry about that."

          By now, Sam was helping Dean to stand and there wasn't anything I could do since neither of them seemed to be listening to me. They were intent on getting away from here, and if I argued I had the feeling that it might be fatal for one or all of us.

          "So you really did want me out of the office on Friday."

          "Not the—" Dean grimaced when he took the first step. "Not the time. Just, just trust me, Y/N. You _do_ trust me, right?"

          "I..." I sighed. "Yeah. I trust you."

          The next few minutes were a slow whirlwind of getting Dean down eight flights of stairs without anyone seeing. Apparently, the elevator was too risky. When we got to the underground garage, I was stopped cold at the sight of a giant motorhome blocking seven parking spots. You don't see too many of those in the city.

          "Guys?"

          "It's okay, Y/N," Dean mumbled as he let Sam drag him over to it. The door opened and out came a concerned, yet light-hearted guy.

          "You look like you went twelve rounds with a giant kookaburra," he announced before looking over at me. "Hi there. I'm Garth. Who're you?"

          I looked at Sam and Dean to see if it was okay to let this Garth character know who I was. Since I had no idea what was going on, I figured that it was best if I just keep my mouth shut. I didn't want to make things any messier.

          "This is Y/N. Dean's PA. Crowley saw her at the office so..." Sam explained.

          Garth just nodded and motioned me towards the motorhome. "Well, hop on in! I'll make sure you stay safe."

          Sam and Dean immediately went to the bathroom and started cleaning the blood off of Dean. I needed something to do, so I started washing Dean's blood off of my own hands in the kitchen sink. As the pink tinted water swirled down the drain, it took my sanity with it.

          My boss nearly bled out on my couch. There was a dead body in my living room. I had someone else’s blood staining my skin and clothes. And now I was in a motorhome with three strange men.

          “Y/N?” Dean’s soft voice brought be back to the present, but I couldn’t face him quite yet. Instead, I gripped the edge of the sink and took a few deep breaths. “Hey, s’gonna be alright. Garth is gonna get us outta here and Sam texted one of our friends to come help him clean up.”

          “Clean up? Clean up the corpse in my living room?” Nerves and anxiety made my voice ratchet up an octave. I whirled around and vaguely noted that most of the blood had been scrubbed off of Dean’s very chiseled chest and abdomen and he now had a much better bandage covering the wound. It was like the sight of him not dead gave me permission to completely lose my cool. “What the hell, man? You can’t just come barreling into my apartment on the verge of death, then whisk me away without an explanation!”

          “And you’ll get your explanation, I promise.”

          “As soon as we’re on the road,” Garth cut in, looking at his phone. “Rufus texted. He lost the group of people he was tailing. We’ve gotta get some miles between us.”

          Sam immediately jumped into action, helping Dean towards the back of the RV where a bed was. Garth snuck around him and pressed on a latch on the side of the bed. I watched in confusion while the mattress swung up to reveal a small space underneath. There was no way—

          “Well,” Garth drawled, scratching his head. “It’s gonna be a tight squeeze. I was only expecting to get Dean out, but now that Y/N’s here you two are gonna be real close.”

          Of course. Hidden under a bed. Naturally, that’s the only way out.

          “My dream come true,” I muttered drily.

          Dean cocked an eyebrow at me and I just tilted my head back in a question to his question. “I was expecting you to argue or ask more questions.”

          “I’m too confused, I wouldn’t even know what question to start asking. Besides, I guess we’ll be stuck together so you’ll have plenty of time to explain.”

          Looking like he very much was _not_ looking forward to that conversation, Dean allowed Sam to help him into the small space under the mattress. Once he was situated, I climbed in after him and pressed myself into the small space beside him, being mindful of his fresh wound.

          “This feels an awful lot like a coffin,” I commented after a second of silence where Sam and Garth were looking down at us and the mattress loomed over, ready to be laid back down.

          “Hope you’re not claustrophobic,” Garth said cheerily. “If you need to talk to me, just push this button right on the bottom of the mattress and I’ll be able to hear you through the radio up front.”

          “Got it,” Dean grunted and tried to shift his position a little. The movements made him wince, and I quickly did my best to accommodate him and make it hurt a little less. Even if I was incredibly annoyed and confused at the moment, I was still his PA, so it was my job to make his life easier. Plus, you know, he’d just been shot and all. That warranted a little sympathy.

          “Hey, Y/N?” Sam said, drawing my attention to him. “Take care of him, okay? Keep him awake.”

          “Hey, if he dies, then I stop getting paid.”

          Dean chuckled. “That’s the spirit. Sammy, we’ll be fine. Go do your thing.”

          “You do yours too. Be careful.”

          And within the next minute, the mattress was lowered over us and we were in complete darkness. Dean’s heartbeat was slow and steady in my ear and his thumb was tracing circles on my lower back. After the crazy hour I’d had, the sudden lack of, well, anything was almost more intense.

          “This would be a really bad time to realize that I’m claustrophobic, right?” I whispered, needing _something_ to break the loud silence.

          “Yeah. Let’s save that for later, okay?”

          “Mm-hmm.” Now would be the time to remind him about that explanation he owed me. But did I really want to know? The more I knew, the deeper in I would get. Though I suppose that being smuggled away under a bed in an RV being driven by an eccentric man while the brother of my boss cleaned up a dead body in my living room was already in pretty deep.

          Luckily, Dean made up my mind for me. “Before I start explaining, I need to remind you about the non-disclosure. You can’t say _anything_ about this to _anyone_.”

          “I doubt anyone would believe me if I did. But, yeah. I won’t say anything.” Of course, if this ended up being taken to the police, well, a girl’s gotta look after herself first. I’d have to take another look at the non-disclosure, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t cover things like murder.

          He took a deep breath before beginning. “There’s this organization that’s trying to put together a new tech that will undermine all of the security measures at every bank in America. If they finish creating this tech, then I’m talking every bank account emptied instantly and widespread panic. It’ll be worse than the Great Depression or the crash in ’08.”

          “Makes sense,” I mumbled. Banks were the foundation of America, because money was the very building bricks of everything in this country. Still though, I didn’t understand what that had to do with him getting shot.

          “Right. Well, my own team has been tracking this group for a few months. We keep an eye out for threats like this and when we can, we take action. Anyway, last week we got wind that there would be a valuable piece of the puzzle being transported tonight. And, since we need all of the info we can if we’re going to prevent this from happening, I decided to take action and I stole the USB that, hopefully, has most of the information we need.”

          “You did what?!”

          “It’s kinda what I do.” He sounded almost apologetic. “My team and I fight these kinds of threats. It’s just like the regular business I do, but with, well, bullets.”

          “You could have _died_!” It was too bad that I could barely move, because I really wanted to knock some sense into him.

          “This is what I do, Y/N. And I’m good at it.”

          “You got shot,” I deadpanned, trying to reconcile this new information with the version of Dean I had in my head. Playboy, businessman… secret agent?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean is exhausted, but Sam told you to keep him awake, so you find… an interesting way to make sure he doesn’t pass out

**~Dean’s POV~**

          I thought the explanation would have taken longer than that. But at its most simple, my life wasn’t actually that difficult. When it came to the questions I was sure Y/N would ask, I knew _that_ was when it would start getting complicated.

          “So, what? You’re a businessman by day, playboy by night, and on weekends you’re a… what? Vigilante? Superhero?”

          “I’m no hero.” Best to get that thought out of her mind right off the bat. “I guess I’m sort of an undercover agent or something.”

          “So, FBI? CIA?”

          How to best answer that? Well, it wasn’t like Y/N could run away so the truth was probably best. Freak her out now and give her time to get used to the idea before she could run away and put herself in danger unknowingly.

          “Not exactly… They don’t know me or my team exist. We don’t always do things legally and we’re definitely not government-sanctioned.”

          Being pressed up so close to her, I could feel how she was reacting by the pace of her heartbeat. I wished I could see her face. After being her boss for so long, I liked to think that I knew her pretty well. The best way to describe her was professionally reserved. She could hide her emotions well in the workplace. But after a while, I learned to read her microexpressions.

          Not because I often found myself staring at her or anything.

          Definitely not.

          Our relationship was strictly professional.

          Completely.

          Still though, I felt her heartbeat speed up as she processed everything I kept dumping on her. She was taking everything well, all things considered.

          “And Crowley?”

          “Meeting with him was a mistake,” I grumbled. The reminder of what had happened with him made my bullet wound ache even more. “I thought he would be a possible ally. You know, the enemy of my enemy. But after I told him what we were after, I guess he decided that he wanted the tech for himself.”

          Y/N scoffed. “I could’ve told you how that would have gone. He didn’t seem like the most trustworthy of people.”

          I’d been struggling with the thought of letting Y/N into my team for the last few months. She had a way with people and reading everyone’s intentions. But every time I tried convincing myself to come clean, I just couldn’t do it. She deserved a normal life.

          Yet here she was, in a coffin-sized smuggle hole in Garth’s RV with her boss who was about to pass out.

          “Yeah, well anyway he showed up and in the crossfire between everything, that’s how I got shot.”

          “Right. How’s that feeling?”

          “I think I’m going to sleep.”

          “No, you’re not.” She insisted authoritatively. “Sam said you have to stay awake.”

          Younger brothers were a pain. Sleeping was what was best for me right now. What did he know? “Well, as your boss I’m telling you to let me go to sleep.”

          “And as the person you just _kidnapped_ , I’m going to respectfully ignore that. Sam helped me save your life, so I’m going to listen to him right now.”

          “I don’t think there’s going to be much you can do otherwise, sweetheart.” My eyes were already closed in the darkness and I was surprisingly comfortable, considering the bullet wound and how close Y/N was. Though maybe the latter had something to do with it.

          “Like hell there’s not,” she mumbled. Rarely have I ever heard Y/N cuss. At work she was always so put together and professional. But tonight she was yelling and cussing and talking back and it was definitely a side of her that I wouldn’t mind seeing more often. “What’s it gonna take to keep you awake? Embarrassing confessions? Dirty confessions?”

          And suddenly I was _wide_ awake.

          She chuckled darkly. Just as I could feel her body’s reactions, she could obviously feel mine. “Dirty confessions it is.”

          “I don’t think this is an acceptable conversation between a boss and his assistant.” This definitely was a conversation I would _love_ to have with her when we were alone in a room and I could actually _do_ something about it.

          “Considering I’m mentally writing my resignation letter, I think we’re good.”

          That was a joke. I was almost positive.

          Still though, not being able to move at all when Y/N was telling me about her sex life was about to be torture. I was definitely going to have to stop this before—

          “In college, my boyfriend and I went to a nude beach in Italy—“ and now I was picturing Y/N naked. It wasn’t a new thing, but this time I could _feel_ her curves pressed against my body and _hear_ her soft voice in my ear and there was no escape. “—and this other couple invited us back to their condo.”

          “How much detail do you plan on going into?” This time the pain in my voice wasn’t because of my wound and I think that she knew that because she somehow managed to press her body even closer to mine.

          “As much as it takes.”

          “Let me get this straight.” Stall. Maybe if I could move the conversation away from the current track, then we could save it for some time when we were completely alone and not losing blood. “I kidnap you and tell you that there’s a whole other side to my life that I’ve been lying to you about and instead of trying to get away, you decide to tell me about all of the kinky details of your life? How is that punishment?”

          I knew the answer, but I was seriously hoping that she wasn’t thinking the same way I was.

          Unfortunately, Y/N was _definitely_ thinking the same way I was. She slipped her leg between mine and moved up my body until her head was tucked into the crook of my neck and her hot breaths on my skin didn’t leave any room for negotiation. She knew _exactly_ what she was doing and there was _no way_ I was going to be able to go to sleep now.

          “So anyway, we went back to their condo—“

          “Do you speak Italian?”

          “Yeah. It was on my resume. But there’s not really a use for Italian here like there is for Spanish.”

_It’s still hot_. Saying that now, though, would not help my cause at all.

          “Honestly, the worst part of the whole night was that we had to put our clothes back on to get to their condo. But I don’t know if you’ve ever watched someone else take the clothes off of any of your girlfriends while they watch you the entire time, but _my God_ , it’s the hottest thing.”

          Now she was rubbing circles into my bare chest and everything about this situation was building up to a very unsatisfying ending. But I couldn’t find any more words to stop it because, well, I really didn’t want to.

          “Actually, I take that back. Seeing the look in my boyfriend’s eyes when he watched the other woman take my clothes off was _so fucking hot_. I could see how he followed her every movement. I saw how he couldn’t get enough of the way she touched me.”

          “Fuck, Y/N.” It just slipped out. I couldn’t help it. The imagine of Y/N with another woman… The imagine of Y/N with anyone, honestly. And the image of Y/N with me?

          That was a thought that _should_ be banished from my mind, but I wasn’t thinking rationally _at all_ right now. Garth was a few yards away and I had just been shot _and_ the USB in my pocket should be my first priority, but all I wanted was to get Y/N naked.

          Sleep was definitely the last thing on my mind. She was way too good at this. There was limited room in this smuggle hole, but that didn’t mean _everything_ was off the table.

          “You want to go to sleep now, Dean?”

          “Fuck no.” Maybe I wasn’t thinking right because of the blood loss and pain, or maybe it was because I was so incredibly turned on, but I just couldn’t help myself from tangling my fingers in her hair and pulling her face up to mine for a kiss.

          This wasn’t the first time I’d wanted to kiss her—that was practically a daily occurrence—but every other time I’d managed to push away the urge. She was my assistant and we were professional. But after the last few minutes, there was no way I could control the urge.

          And by the way she was kissing me back, I knew that whatever I’d been feeling the past year was definitely reciprocated. Her hands were all over my chest, shoulders, hair. Mine found their way under her shirt to dig into her smooth skin. It was pitch black which just made every touch that much more intense.

          “Hey guys, you two doing okay back there?” Garth’s voice from a speaker in the bottom of the mattress surprised us apart. “Is Dean still alive—I mean awake?”

          “Talk about bad timing,” I mumbled, trying to talk myself down.

          “Where did you think this was going?” Y/N asked in a breathy voice. She maneuvered her arm until she could press the button to respond. “Yeah, he’s awake. We’re a little squished, but doing pretty good.”

          “Great. I didn’t want Dean’s snoring to give you two away when they search us.”

          “Search us?” Y/N hadn’t pressed the button, so I knew she was asking me.

          I shifted, trying to relieve some pressure below the belt. “The people making the tech to drain all the banks may or may not be a dark government agency. We knew they would set up checkpoints on all roads out of the city. That’s why we’re sealed in an RV.”

          “Great.” Y/N tried to pull away from me, and I knew that she was starting to freak out. Maybe the dirty confession interlude hadn’t been completely to keep me awake, but a way for her to escape from the situation for a moment.

          Well, I couldn’t let her get lost in her head. So I grabbed her thigh and kept her leg over mine. She couldn’t see it, but I had a devilish smile on my face. She couldn’t go far anyway in this small space, but I didn’t want her to go anywhere at all. Keeping her rooted to the moment was just a pleasant side effect. With my other hand, I pressed the button. “How long is the line of cars?”

          “About ten. And they’re looking closer than my Aunt Esther when she lost her glasses.”

          “So we’ve gotta stay quiet for a while.”

          “I’ll let you know when we’re next in line,” came Garth’s response.

          “What’s your play, Dean?” Y/N’s voice was dangerously low and I knew that she was starting to think about the situation and the new revelations about me.

          That kiss had been spur of the moment, and now it was wearing off. I needed to take a step back or I might scare her off completely and I needed her to stick around so she would stay safe.

          “You never finished your story about your night in Italy.”

          “You’re awake. I don’t need to.”

          She was playing that way, huh? Well, I could play too. Dirty confessions was the game? I had plenty of those. Now I just needed to use what I knew about Y/N and what I’d guessed about what she was into to find a story from my past to get her distracted enough that she didn’t overthink. Once we were past the checkpoint it wouldn’t be such a big deal. But I couldn’t have her purposefully making noise to let them know where we were in a false attempt to save herself.

          Plus, I really wanted to know if I was right about guessing what she was into. I would have never guessed the foursome scenario from her, but that didn’t mean I was wrong about other kinks.

          “Have you ever let anyone tie you up?”

          Her muscles instantly tensed up and her heartbeat started racing. I was _so_ right.

          “I’ve been on both sides,” I continued, trying to keep my voice as level as possible. “But I really like tying up the women I’m with. Them giving me total control. I love taking my time getting to know her body. Has anyone ever made you completely lose it before they even get you completely undressed? It’s the best feeling to have them straining to touch me, but they can’t. I can learn _every_ nuance of their bodies.”

          “Dean…”

          “It’s kinda like right now. You’re not able to move—“

          “Neither can you.”

          And there was a sudden role reversal in my mind. “You wanna be on the other side? You like to be in charge, sweetheart? Tie me up? I bet you’d just love to do anything and everything to me. Run your tongue all over my body. Leave marks wherever you want.”

          “ _God,_ Dean, you have _got_ to shut up right now.”

          I think both of us were _way_ too turned on for our current circumstances, but there was no way I could even consider letting this go now. “Why? You had no problem turning me on a few minutes ago. I’m just giving you a taste of your own medicine.”

          “Because you’re bleeding from a gunshot wound and we’re about to be searched by some, some, some secretive, villainous, government agency and—“

          “Don’t think about that right now. The more anxious and tense you are, the more likely you are to accidentally give us away.” She took a few deep breaths, and I felt her fist that was by my head clench and unclench a few times. My own hand slowly stroked her hair, like my mom used to do with me when I threw a fit. “Good, good. Now are you going to help me distract you, or are you going to keep arguing with me?”

          “Arguing with you _is_ relaxing, _Mr. Winchester_. It’s familiar.”

          “We’re not too good at turning off our arguments though. That could cause problems.”

          “And talking about our sex lives until both of us can’t stop from feeling each other up won’t cause problems?”

          Fair point. “Then what do you suggest?”

          “Uh, I don’t know. Ask me questions. Make me talk about myself. I’m really good at doing that.”

          Ask her questions about herself, huh? I tried to come up with something, but quickly realized that I had a problem. I knew next to nothing about her. She had been my assistant for a year and she probably knew more about me than I did, but I knew only a few details about her personal life. What kind of a boss was I?

          “Tell me about your…” A brief memory of Y/N mentioning a niece crossed my mind. “Niece. How is she?”

          “She’s great. My brother actually mailed me this tee-shirt last week because Addy wanted us to have matching shirts. She called me and made me promise that I would wear it to bed every night just so that we could have a magical connection that would last all day long the next day.”

          Her shirt… All that I knew was that there were some bright colors. I hadn’t exactly been focused on her clothing when I’d burst into her apartment tonight. “What shirt is that?”

          “Moana. She was so excited for that movie that I flew out just to watch it with her. I made a whole weekend of it.” Y/N was getting much more relaxed by now. A smile was peeking through her words, and I couldn’t help my own smile at the love she had for her niece. “I bought some Moana stuff beforehand because I knew that we would love it. The internet was raving and, I mean, you can’t go wrong with Lin Manuel-Miranda, Dwayne _The Rock_ Johnson, and someone as cute as Auli’I Cravalho. I even got a hotel room for the two of us so my brother could have a weekend to himself.”

          “Where’s her mother?”

          And just like that, the light mood that had been created evaporated. “She’s not in the picture. She was… well I was going to say _kind of_ a bitch, but there’s no _kind of_ about it. Addy’s way better off without her.”

          “At least she’s got you, right?”

          “At least she’s got me,” Y/N echoed as if in a trance.

          I was just about to ask another question when Garth’s voice crackled over the speaker. “They’re coming up to the RV now. It’s show time, lady and gent.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You and Dean finally upgrade from the under-the-mattress storage to an actual car where you get caught up on the rest of the team

**~Reader’s POV~**

          “Aww, they’re so cute, aren’t they?”

          The light assaulted my eyelids and I groaned and turned away from it as much as I could, which just elicited a pained grunt from the person beside me. And just like that, everything came hurtling back to me.

          “Oh my God, Dean. I’m sorry!” I tried to open my eyes so I could carefully extract myself from this coffin without hurting him more, but let’s be honest here, at the moment I was positive that the attack of light on my optical nerves was just as painful as his gunshot wound. We’d been in the dark for… who knows how long. We’d both fallen asleep a few hours after we passed through the checkpoint without any problems. It could be years later. Centuries, even.

          “Stop. Moving,” he managed to grunt out, and I quickly complied.

          A low chuckle from the foot of the bed came and I felt someone’s hand on my arm. “Here, Y/N. Hold onto me. I’ll lift you out.”

          “Sam?”

          “It’s me. C’mon.”

          Sometime in the process of getting Dean and me out of the hidey-hole, I managed to open my eyes and keep them open. As soon as we were out, Garth lowered the bed and Dean flopped down onto it so that they could check his bandages.

          Sam glanced over his shoulder at me. “I thought I told you to keep him awake.”

          “Yeah, well, I finished writing my letter of resignation in my head so…” I shrugged and turned around to fish around the kitchen for some food. I was desperate to know what the next step for me was, but I also couldn’t ignore my stomach. Since they kidnapped me and didn’t give me any time to pack snacks, I figured they owed me.

          “I’m not gonna accept it,” Dean grunted.

          “I won’t accept you not accepting it. I already have a plan for my first week of unemployment and it involves an entire liquor store to forget all about whatever the hell is happening now. I’m looking forward to that.”

          My sleuthing turned up some carrots in the fridge and a bag of Doritos in a cabinet. Good enough. Once I had my treasures, I headed back to the group and sat on the edge of the bed next to Dean’s head.

          “Open up.” I dangled a chip over his mouth and fed it to him while Sam finished bandaging him up. As he chewed on that, I shoved a few into my mouth, completely disregarding social constructs about manners and being lady-like. “So, what am I doing next? Being shoved into a shipping container? Chained in a basement?”

          “Sticking with us and staying quiet,” Sam said.

          Dean coughed, apparently knowing exactly how I would react to that. Before I could say anything, though, he rushed in to soften his brother’s explanation. “We have to turn over the tech I got and it would be best if you let us do the talking.”

          “They aren’t gonna like her being there,” Garth pointed out.

          “Well, I’m not letting her out of my sight.”

          “Maybe she _would_ be better off with Garth,” Sam said softly. “Just while you’re handing it over.”

          “Maybe you should shut your mouth. Look, I’m the one that dragged her into this, so it’s _my_ job to make sure she stays safe.”

          A bunch of guys arguing over me like I wasn’t even in the room. Of course. “Well, I guess it wouldn’t be a _real_ secret mission moment until I say this, but _guys._ I’m _right here_. Stop talking about me like I’m not.”

          All three men looked at me like I had magically appeared in the room and I nearly rolled my eyes. Okay, I might have actually rolled my eyes.

          “What do _you_ think we should do with you, Y/N?” Sam asked.

          Okay. Not really the outcome I was expecting or even wanting. I had no idea how to answer that. Honesty is the best policy though, right?

          “I have no idea how to answer that. I don’t know what’s going on or what the impact would be either way. I don’t know what kind of danger I’m in. But… but I trust Dean. I know him best and, no offense to either of you, but I think I _would_ rather stick around with him rather than someone I just met.”

          Dean smiled widely and slung his arm around my shoulder. “It’s decided then! Sammy, pull the car around and we can get on the road. But before we stop at Bobby’s I _really_ need a burger.”

          “Dude, it’s ten a.m.”

          “So?”

          Everyone started moving and, true to my word, I stuck by Dean’s side the entire time.

          I was entirely out of my element, which was weird. As a PA, it was my job to be a social chameleon. I was the person who was Dean’s date to black tie events when it would be bad press for him to take someone else. I was the person who ran to the store in the middle of the night in my sweats for medicine when Dean called to tell me he was sick. I was the person who yelled at clients then turned around and released a press statement about Dean’s charitable contributions to society. I could do it all.

          But right now? I had no idea what I was supposed to be.

* * *

**~Dean’s POV~**

          “You doing okay back there?” Sam called back to Y/N, who was just waking up from a three-hour nap in the backseat.

          “What year is it?” she asked groggily, making me chuckle. Good to know that she still had a sense of humor in this situation. In fact, she was handling everything _much_ better than I had expected.

          “We’re almost to Bobby’s. Half an hour.”

          “Bobby is…”

          Sam glanced at me as we contemplated that answer. Our team dynamic was odd, to say the least. We were a small team spread out across the nation, but somehow, we were still tightly knit, like a family.

          “He’s kind of like the dad of our team.” I managed to sum him up.

          I twisted in my seat, laying my arm across the back of it so I could face Y/N better. Apparently my gunshot wound meant that Sam didn’t trust me to drive. Whatever. On the bright side, this meant that I was able to get a better read on Y/N’s state of mind.

          “Who else is there?” She was sitting up by now, but the blanket was still clutched tightly in her fingers. Maybe she wasn’t handling this as well as I had assumed.

          “Me, Sam, Bobby, Benny—“

          “Dean,” Sam warned.

          But I shook my head. There was so much that Y/N didn’t know, and I knew that she needed something to hold on to. She needed to feel like she had a little control of her life, otherwise she would spiral. “She’s gonna meet everyone in half an hour anyway. So, Benny. He helped Sam clean up your place and cover our tracks. He’s one of those southern guys who seems to flirt with anything that breathes—“

          “So, a southern version of you?”

          Sam snorted, and didn’t bother covering it up when I glared at him. “Oh, just wait until we get both of them in the same room. They can’t help but flirt with each other. They have a _total_ bromance.”

          There was a small smile on Y/N’s lips at Sam’s ribbing, so I let it slide. “Okay. Benny the Bromancer. Who’s next?”

          “Kevin. He’s young, but he’s smarter than all of us. Heart of gold. A tad high-strung, but we still love ‘im.”

          Sam finally gave in and helped me describe everyone. “Charlie is our resident hacker. She can find _anything_ on the web, no matter how hard someone wanted it hidden. And she’s a giant nerd. Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, LARPing. You name it.”

          “She’s like our little sister. You’ll love her.”

          “And if Bobby’s the dad of our team, then Ellen and Jody are the co-moms. Don’t try to get anything past them because you’ll end up getting the stank-eye and an earful.”

          “And don’t try to drink either of them under the table either,” I made sure to add. “Especially Ellen.”

          “Jo, her daughter, has a major crush on Dean.”

          “But who doesn’t?” Y/N interjected good-naturedly.

          “Claire and Alex. They’re Jody’s adopted daughters. Claire is one hundred percent into the mission, but Alex wants nothing to do with it. She’s good when she helps out, but she wants a normal life.”

          “Rufus won’t be there, but he’s still a part of the team. He’s worked with Bobby longer than any of us have been alive. They’re old, crotchety men, but they’re good people.”

          “And we have Dean, who is the Oliver Queen of the group,” Y/N mused. I had _no_ idea who she was talking about, but didn’t question her. “And Sam who… what _is_ your role, Sam?”

          “Hair specialist,” I quickly answered, _needing_ to hear Y/N laugh. At least a single snort. And I was lucky enough to get an actual, real laugh that lifted my spirits. “But he’s also our research nerd.”

          “And nutritionist,” Sam teased, surprising me. Usually he didn’t play along when I was poking fun at him. He just sent me a shrug and continued. “If it wasn’t for me, these guys would all eat diner burgers and beer for every meal.”

          “Nothing wrong with that,” I mumbled.

          “I know what you mean,” Y/N said, ignoring me and focusing her attention on my younger brother. “When I’ve had to bring Dean dinner because his office shackled him in, he always complains about the, how does he put it, the _healthy shit_ I get for him.”

          “Spinach does not belong in smoothies. Period.”

          “My smoothies got rid of dozens of your hangovers, didn’t they? As Maui would say, _You’re Welcome!_ But, speaking of the mom and dad of the group, what do _your_ parents think about this double life?”

          My parents? What in the world was she talking about? Sam and I shared a confused look. “Uh, our mom died when we were kids. And dad died, like, ten years ago. You know this.”

          “No.” She sounded so sure, which was weird because last I checked, it wasn’t _her_ life. “They’re alive. Your mom came to visit last month. I had lunch with her while you were at the meeting with Iritayn Corp.”

          Brief flashes of my mother walking into my office flickered through my mind, but I also clearly remember the house fire that killed her when I was just a kid. I remembered her cutting the crusts off my sandwiches, but right next to that memory was one of me making marshmallow mac ‘n cheese for Sammy in a hotel room because I’d never had a parent to teach me how to cook. My father, playing catch with me in the backyard was quickly followed by a stern-faced John teaching me how to shoot a gun when I could barely hold the rifle up.

          “What’s going on, Dean?” Y/N asked slowly.

          Her voice brought me back to the present and I shook my head, hoping to clear it from the weird double vision. “Nothing, that was…that was weird.”

          “Yeah,” Sam agreed softly. “For a minute, I was convinced mom and dad were dead.”

          “Me too.”

          Silence screamed between the three of us for a minute before Y/N spoke up. “Are you two on drugs or something? Should I be driving?”

          Sam shook his head, much like I had just a minute ago to clear it. “Nah. I’m good. Besides, you don’t know where we’re going.”

          As Sam drove the last few miles to Bobby’s, I couldn’t shake the lingering feeling that something had just changed, even if everything was still the same.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After arriving at Bobby’s, Jody orders Dean to take you to town and buy you some clothes where you run into someone you’d much rather not

**~Reader’s POV~**

          When we got to the ramshackle junkyard and old, homey house, I was drawn into a whirlwind of activity. Sam disappeared off in one direction and Dean was pulled away in another which left me standing alone in the entryway while everyone danced around in a mess of missions and purpose.

          What in the world had I allowed myself to be dragged into?

          “You must be Y/N,” a black-haired young woman said as she strolled up to me. “Dean told me to come find you and give you a tour of the place.”

          My own personal tour guide. Lovely. “Who are you? Dean and Sam gave me a crash-course on who would be here, but I forgot everything they said.”

          That managed to elicit a smile from her and she looked around, surveying everything. “Yeah, I can see how this could be overwhelming. I’m Alex.”

          Alex, Alex, Alex… “Jody’s adopted daughter, right?”

          She nodded and started walking further into the melee. “This is the kitchen. There’s basically only one rule in this whole house and it’s that we don’t talk about work in here. The kitchen is holy ground where we eat.”

          “So spend most of my time in here. Got it.”

          As Alex took me on a tour of the house and introduced me to the dozen people littering the rooms, I started feeling even more out of place than was becoming my usual. This was _nothing_ like the organized, modern office that Dean and I worked in. Still though, I tried to focus on the skills I’d mastered over the years to remember everyone’s names and faces. I could feel my sanity slowly slipping away, so I figured that as long as I focus on what was right in front of me, then maybe this would start getting easier.

          And the cold shoulder and suspicious looks I got from most everyone definitely didn’t help at all.

          “There she is!” Dean greeted happily when Alex led me into a bedroom where a woman was checking his bandage. Since I’d already met Ellen, I assumed this was Jody. Dean waved me over and I sat on the edge of the bed next to him. Just being around him, around a part of the time when my life made sense, made me feel so much better. “Jody, meet Y/N. She’s the best PA in the world.”

          “ _Former_ PA,” I quickly corrected. I wasn’t actually sure if I was going to really quit or not, but I had to keep up the gag now. “I quit the moment I realized that they kidnapped me just to shove me in a dark hole to smuggle me out of the city. That wasn’t in my contract.”

          Jody chuckled and I was instantly endeared to her. “Smart girl. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure I keep these boys in line around you until we can get you home.”

          “You might need to protect us from Y/N,” Dean threw in, a mischievous gleam in his eye. “She was the one who crossed the line yesterday.”

          He went there? In front of Jody? Well, I couldn’t let that tarnish my nonexistent reputation around here. “I just needed to keep you awake. It didn’t—I wasn’t—there wasn’t a _line_.”

          “Mmm, sounds like something that someone who crossed the line would say.”

          Sure, his eyes were twinkling, so, sure, he was just teasing. But that didn’t stop the embarrassment from creeping in. I _had_ crossed a line since he was _still_ technically my boss. But he hadn’t protested. He’d actually been the one to initiate the kiss in the first place. So there.

          “Dean, be nice,” Jody scolded. “Now, I’m going to steal Y/N away. I’m sure you want a nice hot shower and some alone time to get your head together. I’ll scrounge up something for you to wear, then when she’s ready, Dean, you’re going to take her into town and buy her some clothes. It’s the least you can do.”

          Mother of the team indeed. I was liking Jody more and more. I let her whisk me away and get me set up in the old bathroom that smelled of mildew. Because I knew that there was chaos on the other side of the door, I took my time in the shower and getting ready. This was supposed to be a relaxing weekend for me. But now I was halfway across the country in a bathroom that had a dozen strangers milling about on the other side of the door with my boss’s blood on my Moana shirt.

          How was I going to explain that to Addy?

* * *

  **~Dean’s POV~**

          “So what’s the plan for the tech you stole? Destroy it?” Y/N had to practically shout to be heard over the struggling engine of the old lemon Bobby had lent us to get us into town.

          “Charlie, Kevin, and Sam are working on reverse engineering it. We want to figure out how it works, and see if we can recreate how the other pieces interact with it so that we can manufacture a defense against it. Whoever made this piece is still out there, so they can probably make another one just as easily. We didn’t stop the attack, just delayed it a while.” Hopefully.

          After my explanation, there was silence from the other side of the car. I expected more questions from Y/N. She wasn’t the type to stay quiet. A good assistant got all of the information she needed, and she wasn’t shy about it. And Y/N was a _phenomenal_ assistant.

          So I glanced over and saw her staring out the window with her eyebrows drawn together.

          “What’s up, Y/N?”

          “You’ve been living this whole other life ever since I met you and I didn’t even suspect anything.”

          “That just means that I’m good at my job.”

          “No, it means that—“ She cut herself off and started in a new direction. “So you said that most everyone in your team lives all across the country, right? Why are they all here now?”

          “Something big is about to happen, so we decided it was best to pool all of our resources and go in for the home stretch together.” What had she been about to say? _It means that…_ what? “Plus, it doesn’t take much to get the whole crew together. Usually we go to Ellen’s bar, but we decided that we probably needed to actually focus this time.”

          She finally looked over at me as we pulled into town and I pointed the car towards the mall and boutiques. “You guys really are just like a family, huh?”

          “Yeah. I mean, you fly out just to watch a movie with your niece, and we all fly out to get together and try to save the world.”

          “My niece?”

          There was a hollow tone in her voice that had me worried, so I pulled the car over to the side of the road, justifying that we were close enough to the mall and could walk the rest of the way. “Yeah. The niece that got you the matching Moana shirt? You told me about her when we were in Garth’s RV.”

          “I don’t have a niece,” Y/N said slowly, looking at me like I had two heads. What the hell was going on? Had she lied to me? But why would she lie about having a niece?

          “Her name is Addy, I think? You told me that you rented a hotel room so the two of you could have a girls’ weekend and let your brother have some alone time?”

          “Addy…” Distress coated her expression and I reached over to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder, but she flinched away from me and started running her fingers through her hair anxiously. “No, no this isn’t… I’m not…”

          “Y/N… Y/N!” I said louder, finally snapping her out of whatever haze she’d been in. “You okay?”

          “No, yeah. I’m just—“

          The weird moment where Sam and I thought our parents were dead fluttered through my mind. “Was it… was it like there were two versions of the past crowded in your mind? But one was obviously fake? Like my parents being dead, and not dead?”

          It was like I’d thrown her a lifeline and she reached out and grabbed on with both hands. Her entire countenance lightened. “Yeah. Of course. Your parents are alive and Addy is my niece. That was… that was weird.”

          “What was the second set of memories in your head?” I was almost scared to ask. Those few seconds of believing that my parents were dead were horrible. And after seeing Y/N’s reaction, I knew that whatever she’d seen was just as bad, if not worse.

          “Nothing,” she said far too quickly. “I was just—nothing. It doesn’t matter. Addy is my niece. That’s all that matters. Now let’s go shopping!”

          Her too-happy fake voice lingered in the car after she quickly exited. Whatever she had seen, it hadn’t been good at all. But if she didn’t want to talk about it, then I wasn’t about to push.

          By the time we’d gone to three different stores, the whole incident was practically gone from my mind. She seemed back to normal, and it was actually fun to watch her model the outfits. Who knew that I, Dean Winchester, would actually like watching a woman shop?

          The world really was going crazy after all.

          “Well, we should probably get back to Bobby’s.”

          “Aww, do we have to?” Y/N pouted and I swear to God, when she brought out her puppy dog eyes and that bottom lip, I realized just how dangerous she was. “I like having you as _my_ assistant for a change. Carrying around my bags and paying for my clothes. All that’s left is for you to get me some coffee.”

          “It’s too late for coffee, but I’ll get you one of those soft pretzels that always seem to be in malls, if you want.”

          “Ooo, I do want! Get me one of the cinnamon ones with some frosting to dip it in.”

          Her eyes were so bright and shoulders relaxed that I couldn’t help but drop the bags on the nearest food court table and pull her into my side for a quick hug. In our shared good mood, I also couldn’t help myself from pressing a kiss to the side of her head with a light laugh. “You’ve got it. Put your feet up and I’ll be right back with your pretzel, _Ms._ Y/L/N.”

          She smiled cheekily and did just as I said, plopping down in a chair and propping her feet up on another.

* * *

 

**~Reader’s POV~**

          “Hello, love,” a British voice yanked me out of my thoughts about when Dean kissed my head before heading off to get a pretzel. Alarm filled me when I saw it was the same man from the office on Friday. Crowley.

          Obviously my first instinct was flight, not fight. This was a public space filled with people, what could he possibly do to me?

          Never ask that question. It’s right up there with _How could this possibly get any worse?_

          Because when I stood up, Crowley put his hand on my arm and forcefully kept me in the chair. “Now, now, dear. Let’s not be too hasty.”

          Even with my heart pounding in my head, I couldn’t miss the pointed look he cast under the table. I looked through the mesh table top and saw that he had a small gun pointed right at me. Suddenly, my heart wasn’t pounding in my head because it wasn’t pounding at all.

          “Y/N, darling, I just want to have a little chat.”

          “Yeah, I really don’t want to.” My words felt rushed and blurred, but he got the gist.

          “And I really wanted the little present that Dean stole. We don’t all get what we want. Now tell me, Y/N. How’s your daughter doing?”

          If my heartbeat was frozen before, now it was as if every cell in my body forgot how to work. The dual set of memories I’d experienced in the car came rushing back in.

          It had been a very different life. I’d been strung out and high nearly all the time. My poor baby girl bore the brunt of my bad decisions. Horrible memory after horrible memory attacked me until finally I was standing in front of a too-small grave, staring down at Addalyn Y/L/N, carved into stone.

          “I don’t have a daughter.” Dean’s parents were still alive, and Addy was my niece.

          With his free hand, Crowley snapped his fingers as if something had just occurred to him, but he did it with such a theatricality that I knew he was just acting. “Oh! That’s right. What is that precious little girl to you in this timeline? Your brother’s daughter? Your niece.”

          I knew that there should be a part of his mini-speech that I should question and try to get more information out of, but I was too busy oscillating between the two sets of memories to focus on anything besides my niece. Not daughter. I’d never done drugs in my life. I’d never given birth. I always took the pill on time and made sure my partners used protection. I was as careful as I could be.

          Addy was my niece.

          I never killed a daughter.

          Dean came over, face flushed with anger. “Crowley, you get away from her.”

          “He has a gun,” I warned softly.

          “Y/N and I were just having a nice little chat, weren’t we?”

          “You and I have _very_ different definitions of the word _nice_.”

          Dean positioned himself behind my chair. The weight of his hands on my shoulders should have been comforting, but it just made me more anxious. “What’s your play, Crowley? Are you gonna shoot us right here? In the middle of _everyone_? There are security cameras and security guards everywhere.”

          “Believe it or not, I need the both of you alive.” He sounded bored. Someone holding others at gunpoint should _not_ be bored. That just seemed like a bad combination. “But there is someone that my colleagues found who, well, might be meant to be dead. A certain little girl…”

          He slid his phone our way and I knew whose picture I would be looking at before I even looked down.

          Addy.

          “No. What do you want, Crowley?” I asked. Addy was my niece and I would do _anything_ for her.

          “Y/N…” Dean said warningly.

          “It’s my niece, Dean. He’s threatening a little, defenseless girl.”

          “Glad to see we’re all in agreement,” Crowley’s cordial voice made me want to vomit. “Now, Dean, I think it’s time for you to sit down in that chair right there while Y/N and I take a little walk.”

          “She’s not going any—“

          “Tsk, tsk, tsk, Squirrel. I’m the one calling the shots here. And don’t worry, I’ll return her safe and sound in a few hours. Where are you staying? That old ramshackle excuse for a house that my dear friend Bobby owns? Did he ever tell you about the time we kissed? _I_ think he liked it. After all, he didn’t _need_ to use tongue but… oh. Right. That didn’t happen here. Shame. Anyway.” Crowley fixed his level gaze on me. “Shall we take a stroll, darling?”

          “Y/N, you don’t have to—“

          “Dean, it’s Addy. I have to.”

          We all stood, and Dean positioned himself half way in front of me. “Crowley, I swear, if anything happens to her—“

          Today just seemed to be the day that everyone kept cutting Dean off in the middle of his sentences. “Relax, Winchester. We both want the same thing, hard to believe as it may be. Now, take a seat. She’ll see you soon.”

          Crowley took my arm and I felt the pressure of a gun barrel pressed against my side a moment later. As he marched me away, I glanced over my shoulder and saw Dean pacing fretfully. His phone was up to his ear already, and he was watching me with wide eyes. What in the world had I just gotten myself into?

          “Where are we going?”

          “To save the world, darling. Or, rather, to save our _real_ world. I don’t know what nonsense Squirrel has fed you about me—“

          “You _shot_ him. Then you sent someone to my apartment to kill me and finish the job on Dean.”

          Crowley considered that for a moment. “True, I _did_ shoot him. But the hitman wasn’t mine. Must’ve been the people your dear Dean stole from. Nevertheless, I _do_ want to save the world, and only you and those pesky, plaid-clad Winchesters can help me. Especially you, for some reason.”

          Plaid? Dean _never_ wore plaid, and I should know. All that was in his closet were a bunch of high-end suits and some casual tee-shirts and jeans. This Crowley was off his rocker.

          My lack of response didn’t seem to deter Crowley any. He just kept talking.

          “It really shouldn’t have surprised me how easily you and the boys let yourselves be dragged into this world. After all, it’s a much better reality than the real one.”

          “What the hell are you talking about? This _is_ reality. This is the world. This is how it is.”

          “Sure. At the moment. But just a few days ago the three of you were—actually, that can wait. You’ll find out soon enough.”

          “Find out what?” I was getting exasperated with the circles that Crowley kept talking in, but a quick jab of the gun in me side quickly brought me back down.

          We neared the back exit and I recognized a man standing there as one of Crowley’s goons from the office. He opened the door and followed us out to where a luxury Mercedes-Benz was waiting in an alley-way. I had totally pegged Crowley as a man with expensive taste. It felt good to know that even as my world seemed to spiral out of control, I could still read people.

          “Tell me, Y/N,” Crowley said as we settled into the backseat, his gun finally holstered. He didn’t need to point it at me anymore, since there was nowhere for me to go. “Have you had any strange memories? I assume you had one about dear, sweet Addy. But anything about your boss? His brother?”

          Denial. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

          He gave me a sideways eye, but then settled back into his seat. Slowly, Crowley pulled out a needle full of a deep violet liquid and flicked it a few times to chase the air bubbles to the top. “Never matter. The memories of your daughter, and surrounding memories, should be helpful enough. After all, I’ve heard that, for an addict, it’s just like getting back on the horse.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean is worried sick over you, but you arrive back at Bobby’s unharmed. However, you have some news that he doesn’t like.

**~Dean’s POV~**

          Six hours. It had been six hours since I watched Crowley lead Y/N away. I should’ve done something. I should’ve done  _more_.

          “Boy, sit down,” Bobby growled. “I can’t concentrate when you’re pacing like a caged lion.”

          It was  _my_  fault Y/N was in this situation. I’d made the decision to go to her for help when I was shot. Granted, her apartment was the closest to the scene so it was the logical choice, but still. I could have waited for Sam in an alley somewhere rather than dragging her into this mess.

          Of course, that probably wouldn’t have helped matters. Her no-nonsense manner with Crowley at the office had put her on his radar. She would have been a target anyway.

          But in a way, that was also my fault. I knew he was coming. I should have known he would show up early. I should have made Y/N take off earlier. Then their paths would have never crossed.

          “Dean you’ve gotta calm down. We’ll find her,” Sam tried to lead me over to a chair, but I was having none of that. There was no way I could sit still.

          Ellen walked into the room, crossed her arms, and glared at me. “Stop worrying so much. She’ll be fine—“

          “She’s with  _Crowley_.”

          “Yeah. So? She’s spent a year working for your whiny ass. Any woman who can put up with your demanding personality during the day and still drag your drunk ass home after the bartender calls can definitely handle herself around some dipshit like Crowley. You hired her as your assistant because you knew that she could handle herself in stressful situations. Have some faith in her now.”

          Ellen just didn’t understand. Yes, Y/N could handle herself. But after the last few days? Well, I wasn’t sure where her breaking point was, but I’m sure we were getting close.

          “I  _do_  have faith in her, Ellen. But this isn’t the kind of stuff I interviewed her for. This is a whole different kind of stress and she’s in the situation because of  _me_. I know that she’s tough and can handle herself, but right now? She’s my responsibility. She’s not just my assistant or my friend, but she’s my freaking  _responsibility_. Crowley took her right in front of me!”

          “We’ve got movement,” Kevin announced from where he was manning the plethora of security cameras Bobby had installed around the property. I rushed over, pushing the argument out of my mind. “Looks like a new Mercedes.”

          “Sounds like a Crowley car,” Sam mused.

          “Where is it?”

          “Front gate, looks like it’s stopping.” The words were barely out of Kevin’s mouth before I was barreling through the front door and tearing down the long driveway.

          I drew into sight just in time to see Y/N get out of the car. She leaned down and said something into the open window before angrily shaking her head and turning to walk back to the house. Just seeing her alive and free filled me with indescribable relief. Then my eyes slid behind her to the car that was pulling away in a cloud of dust and my relief turned to burning anger.

          “Dean.”

          And just like a ping-pong match, my emotions flip-flopped again and I closed the remaining distance between us to pull Y/N into my arms. She immediately pressed herself against me, stealing away as much comfort as she could and I was willing to give her whatever she needed.

          But first I had to make sure she was okay. I pulled back and gave her a once over before curling my hands around the back of her head settling my eyes on her face. If she was hurt in any way, I would be able to see it in her expression. “You okay? Did he hurt you?”

          Her fingers curled around my wrists and her eyes tripped over my face as if she was seeing me for the first time. Suddenly I was scared of what Crowley could have told her about me. Did he spill any of my secrets? Not that I liked keeping anything from her, but Crowley had a way of twisting good intentions to sound like purposeful acts of terror.

          I didn’t have much time to dwell on those thoughts because she was shaking her head. “He didn’t—I’m not… He didn’t hurt me. Well, not physically, at least.”

          “What does that mean?” Psychological warfare was worse, sometimes, than physical wounds.

          “That means that, well, it means that… I need to talk to you and Sam.”

          Intense worry drew her eyebrows together and I slid a hand from her hair to rub my thumb along her cheekbone. She was worrying  _me_. I needed to know what happened in the hours that Crowley had her.

          But since she was intent on keeping her mouth shut until she had me and Sam alone, I gave in and ushered her back to the house, keeping my arm firmly around her waist. I had promised not to let her out of my sight until I was sure she was safe, and I’d broken that promise today. It wasn’t going to happen again.

          “What is this?” Y/N asked after Sam and I led her downstairs to where Bobby’s panic room was.

          “It’s uh, well Bobby is kind of paranoid.”

          She spun around in the space, taking in the fortified room. “This is a bunker? Like, end of the world, nuclear apocalypse bunker? That’s awesome.”

          “Yeah, Bobby’s a pretty cool guy.” Sam closed the door behind him and turned to face Y/N. “This is the most secure room on the entire property. You wanted privacy? No one can hear or see us in here.”

          “Okay. Okay, good.”

          Sam and I just watched while Y/N paced a few times before settling down cross-legged on the floor. After sharing a look with my brother, I followed suit and sat down right across from her. From the pent-up way she was rubbing at the back of her neck and avoiding my eyes, I knew that she probably needed a prompt to begin. “What happened with Crowley?”

          “Do you believe in ghosts and stuff?” She blurted out, meeting my eyes for a brief moment before looking away.  _Ghosts_? “I know, it sounds crazy, but… do you?”

          “Ghosts?” Sam repeated a little dubiously. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

          “What about, like, time travel? Or the multiverse theory?”

          Whatever I had expected Y/N to want to talk to us about,  _this_  wasn’t even close. This make-believe, supernatural crap? It wasn’t real. Crowley must have done something  _big_  to fill her head with this shit.

          “What did Crowley do to you?” I repeated.

          “Nothing,” she quickly replied. But then she kind of backtracked. “I mean, he didn’t really… It was… It all sounds  _crazy_. I get that. I wouldn’t have believed it and I’m not even sure I really do because, I mean, I know that some drugs can cause hallucinations and whatever he gave me was—“

          “He  _drugged_ you?!” I exploded. Red filled my vision and there was only one thought in my head. I  _had_  to make Crowley pay.

          I didn’t even realize I’d moved until Sam was blocking my way to the door and Y/N’s hand was gripping my arm, keeping me still. “Dean,  _please_. You have to hear this.”

          “Are you still high?” I took her chin in my hand and looked at her eyes, but her pupils looked normal and she wasn’t flushed. The trembling in her hands seemed more from stress and nervousness rather than having something in her system.

          “I don’t think so. But, like I said, I don’t know what he gave me. It wasn’t a normal drug, though.” She reached up and laid her hands on my cheeks. Ever since we were smuggled out of the city, every time she touched me it seemed to short-circuit my brain. And the earnest way she was staring up at me nearly made me forget where we were. “Look, Dean. Crowley didn’t hurt me. I’m fine. In fact, he thinks he’s being the good guy and, I know, I know. You don’t believe that. I’m not sure I do either. But you need all the facts and, well, they’re weird facts, but you need them to completely form an opinion.”

          “Weird facts that Crowley gave you.”

          “Weird facts that I  _experienced_.” She glanced over and Sam briefly before dropping her hands and taking a step back. “And I think you have too.”

          “What are you talking about?” Sam, ever the calm head in these situations, asked.

          “Before we got here, you two had a weird moment where you thought your parents were dead. Do you remember?”

          I’d been trying to forget. “But they’re alive.”

          “Here they are. And here, Addy is my niece. But… how did Crowley explain it? This isn’t our original life. There’s another timeline, I guess, where everything is  _so_  different. Where your parents are dead. And where…” Y/N closed her eyes and a pained expression flashed across her face. “Where Addy was my daughter. And in that other timeline, Bobby, Ellen, Jo, and most of the others upstairs are also dead.”

          Sam was leaning against the iron wall and eyeing Y/N carefully. “You just met everyone today, but somehow you remember all of this after a few hours with Crowley? And being high, on top of that?”

          “I wasn’t… it wasn’t a normal drug.”

          “And that.” I butted in. “You told me that you’ve never done drugs. Your background test was clean. How do you know what  _normal drugs_  are?”

          Shame and another emotion I couldn’t place flooded her face. “I’ve never done drugs in  _this_  timeline. But in the other one… In the other one I was an addict for a long time.”

          “What’s his endgame? Why does he want you to believe all of this?”

          This was absolutely insane. There was no way this was real at all. It was all just some sort of illusion or hallucination that Crowley induced with whatever drug Y/N took. After all, Y/N being a drug addict? That was absolutely ridiculous.

          “Because that other timeline is in trouble. Apparently we were in the middle of stopping an apocalypse or something when we, um, when we got sent to this timeline. He needs us back so we can finish saving the world.”

          “This is bullshit. We’re saving the world  _now_!”

          This was just Crowley playing a long game. He wanted to distract us so he can get his hands on the tech. That’s all this is.

          I turned away from both of them for a minute to think through everything. How to best convince Y/N that he was just messing with her. How to dispel the nagging feeling that maybe I’m missing something when I’m definitely not.

          “You asked about ghosts,” Sam said softly to Y/N. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her nod. “What about… like, demons or angels? Are those real in the other…  _timeline_?”

          “Yeah. Uh, apparently Crowley is, like, King of Hell. Demon. I think he’s exaggerating. But in this timeline he doesn’t have any of the demonic powers.”

          “And angels?”

          I pushed away a memory that his words invoked. Angels weren’t real. Or, if they were, they were up in heaven with their robes and harps. They obviously didn’t care about what happened down here. And demons? King of Hell? That was just batty.

          “Yes. In the other timeline, you and Dean dealt with a lot of angels before I joined up with you. We were all hunters over there. Like, hunting monsters. Saving people. Kind of what you guys do here, but, you know, monsters.” She tilted her head at Sam. “Why? Do you remember something from there?”

          “It’s not real!” I yelled, immediately silencing Sam and Y/N. “You can’t remember something from someplace that isn’t real!”

          A long moment passed where both of them just stared at me, then Sam looked back at Y/N and continued on as if I hadn’t spoken. “I think so. I’m not really sure. But I have this image in my head of this angel with a trenchcoat—“

          “Cas.” The name was like a lightning bolt to my spine. I couldn’t move when Y/N continued speaking. “Castiel. Yeah. I remember him too.”

          “How? This is impossible. Think about it: if this is a completely different timeline, then why do you have memories from the other one? We never lived them in this one, right?” Both Y/N and Sam responded well to logic, so I was hoping that posing that question would get them thinking and help them realize that this conversation was insane.

          “I don’t know,” Y/N admitted. “But whatever was in the needle that I shot up with, it like, I don’t know. It opened this door in my head and I could remember everything. Do you… do you really not remember anything except for your parents?”

          The way she was watching me led me to believe that she wanted me to remember something specific. And when I shook my head, her expression fell minutely. I’d disappointed her.

          Whatever. I wasn’t about to play Crowley’s head games just to make Y/N happy.

          “I don’t remember anything because there’s nothing to remember.”

          “It hurts,” she whispered. “This timeline is so much better. You probably just don’t want to remember because it’s so painful. It seems like everyone is dead, and things aren’t—“

          “Are you even listening to yourself, Y/N?” I found myself yelling again. “You sound like you actually believe this shit! It’s just Crowley getting in your head!”

          “He  _wants_  us to go back! Why would he create such a horrifying reality if he wanted us to choose that life over this one?” She shot right back. “Here, Addy is alive. In that one, I  _killed_  her. I was too high to take care of my own daughter! If he really wanted me to go back to that life, don’t you think he would have picked a happier story for my past?”

          Grief warred with shame on her face and that immediately sobered me. That wasn’t to say that I believed, but I calmed down enough to take an objective look at the situation.

          Unfortunately, Y/N wasn’t on the same page. Her emotions had taken over, and I couldn’t blame her. If I believed I had killed my child, I wouldn’t be thinking too straight either.

          “Believe what you will, Dean. But I can’t ignore this. As much as I don’t want to, I still have to face it and come to terms.” In a few short strides, she had the door open and was walking back into the main part of the house.

          She disappeared from my sight and anxiety immediately took ahold of me. I started to follow, but Sam grabbed my arm to hold me back. “She’ll be fine for a few minutes without you. Look, man. I don’t like this anymore than you do—“

          “Then why even entertain the idea? Sam,  _this_  is our life.”

          “Maybe,” he muttered. “Look. I’m just saying, you might want to keep an open mind. Especially if you want to help Y/N through this.”

          His words pierced me. I didn’t believe this, but Y/N truly thought she had a daughter that was dead because of her drug habit. That was going to be a tough pill to swallow.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You wake Sam up and try to convince him to take the drug and get his memories back

**~Reader’s POV~**

          How do you know when someone is really asleep? I mean, unless you’ve slept with them multiple times and know their habits, it’s impossible to tell. Sure, I knew Dean’s sleep patterns in the  _other_ timeline, but I didn’t know if they were the same over here. Since Dean had been breathing slow and steady for the past half hour, I figured he was asleep enough that I could move without waking him up. After all, it only took about ten minutes of sleep for Dean to be completely dead to the world in the other timeline.

          After the minor blow-out in Bobby’s panic room, I’d thought that sharing a room with the brothers would be awkward. Of course, if this had been any other day, then sharing a room with my boss and his brother who I didn’t know  _would_  have been awkward.

          But I did know Sam. Well, I knew the Sam from the other timeline. It was weird.  _Here_  I’d just met him a few days ago. But suddenly I had all of these memories of the two of us playing pranks on Dean and on each other. Him lecturing Dean about eating healthier. I could remember me stitching him up after a hunt.

          A hunt.

          We hunted monsters.

_I_  hunted monsters.

          It was weird.

          But it also wasn’t.

          Honestly, I didn’t know which timeline to believe anymore. And I didn’t want to struggle with this alone. Crowley told me that he would be waiting at the edge of the property with more of the drugs for both Winchesters. They would have the option to remember everything. All I had to do was convince them, then get them out there.

          Well, with how Dean reacted I knew that he wouldn’t say yes. Sure, he’d been softer and more understanding ever since I left the panic room in a huff, but I knew it was just for my benefit. He didn’t really believe, and he didn’t want to. He was close-minded.

          Sam on the other hand…

          I slowly slid off the bed, careful not to disrupt Dean where he was sprawled on more than his half. As softly as I could, I padded over to the old couch pushed against the wall of the bedroom and shook Sam’s shoulder.

          He woke with a start, but luckily didn’t call out. Putting my finger to my lips, I motioned for him to follow me into the hallway. As soon as we were on the side of the house opposite of where everyone was sleeping, I began my explanation.

          “You remember some things. Cas, your parents…”

          “Yeah? What does this have to do with waking me up in the middle of the night?”

          “Do you want to remember more? Crowley has more of that drug. All we have to do is go out to the road and he will meet us there. You can remember everything.”

          His first instinct was to brush me off. I could tell by the way his eyebrows rose and he glanced back towards the room.

          “You don’t have to. Apparently the whole premise of this drug is that the user has to be the one to inject themselves. You have to choose it. So if you don’t want it, then you can go back to sleep. I won’t judge you at all.” The Sam I knew was my friend. He wouldn’t question my judgement. But this Sam didn’t know me as his friend. This Sam knew me as his big brother’s assistant. “I just thought I would give you the choice.”

          Sam turned away from me and looked out a window.

          “What’s it like?”

          “At first it’s just like most drugs. You start to feel weird and—“

          “No,” he cut me off. “I mean, what’s it like having a whole different set of memories in your head? That’s a whole different life, if Crowley’s telling the truth.”

          Oh.

          Well, this wasn’t about to convince him, but I couldn’t lie. “It sucks. And for you, it’s gonna be worse. I had a bad life over there. But you… Honestly, if your life over there was a book, it was definitely written by someone who hates you more than… more than… more than Dean likes sleeping around. And that’s saying something, because in  _both_  timelines, Dean’s always been kind of a manwhore.”

          Except for the last few months in the other timeline…

          But that thought couldn’t continue. I couldn’t think about that.

          He considered my words for a few minutes, and I didn’t say anything to sway him anymore. Honestly, I shouldn’t have even given him the option. Why bring more pain into his life? I could deal with this pain. I could deal with the pain of knowing that once upon a time the three of us used to be best friends. I could deal with the pain of knowing little details about Sam and Dean that one only knows from living with someone else. I could handle the pain of knowing that people were dead because I wasn’t fast enough to kill the monster.

          And I could deal with the pain of knowing that I once had killed my own daughter.

          I could deal with that pain because, maybe I deserved it.

          But to bring that kind of tragedy on Sam and Dean? They were heroes. They kept fighting and saving the world. Even in this world, they still fought for justice. But here, they had their friends. They had their parents.

          Didn’t they deserve that?

          “You know what, Sam? Forget about it. You don’t want to know. You should just… just keep saving the world here. You’re doing a great job.”

          Why was I starting to cry? Why was my throat closing up like an octopus that just ambushed its prey?

          I needed air, so I spun around and dashed out the back door and into the cool midnight breeze. I was going to have to live with the knowledge that somewhere there was a too-small grave with my daughter’s name on it. I was going to have to live with the knowledge that I murdered a defenseless baby. I was going to have to live with that guilt.

          There was no need for Sam to live like that too.

          “Y/N, what’s wrong?”

          Of course he followed me.

          “Nothing. I just… I was just being selfish. It’s fine, Sam.”

          “No, it’s obviously not. Selfish how?”

          I just shook my head, unwilling to admit to my own weakness out loud. But Sam was never one to take no for an answer in either timeline, and he took me by the shoulders and turned me to face him.

          “C’mon, Y/N. Talk to me.”

          “I just didn’t want to be alone, okay? I know so much and I remember how much horror we lived through over there. I didn’t want to be the only one dealing with that, but I shouldn’t have even given you this option because there’s no way we’re going back to that timeline. So there’s no reason why you should remember these things. Just forget about it.”

          “What about the good parts?” Dean’s voice startled me and he stepped out of the shadows of the house. Upon noticing my alarm, he just shrugged. “I heard you and Sam leave and I eavesdropped.”

          So much for not waking him. “Yeah, well, we can all just go back to bed now. Just eavesdrop on each other’s snoring.”

          Dean grabbed my arm when I tried to brush past him. “I want the drug, Y/N.”

          “No, you don’t,” I immediately and anxiously threw back.

          “You gave Sam the option—“

          “Then I took it away. I’m not letting you ruin your life.”

          Well, that definitely didn’t sit too well with him. He crossed his arms and stood a little taller. “Who are you to  _let_  me do anything?”

          “I’m your assistant!” I very nearly yelled. Well, whisper-yelled. I didn’t want to wake anyone up in the house. There was so much that had changed in the last few days, and I had no idea where I stood for the most part, but I was still his PA. We were still in this timeline, so I was still the one who kept his life running smoothly. And it was about damn time he appreciated it.

          “It’s my  _job_  to protect you. Do you have any idea how many people want to have a meeting with you, but they never make it to your office because I do in-depth screenings on all potential business partners? And nearly every single one of those clients end up in the news for scamming some other poor businessman. I’m the one who deals with the aftermath of your one-night stands! I’m the one who drags your ass home when you’re too drunk to even call me and the bartender has to wrestle your phone away from you. I’m the one who calms down investors when they get antsy. I’m the reason you’re even able to do your job, Dean Winchester. So you listen to me when I tell you that this isn’t happening. You’re  _not_  taking that drug.”

          Crickets were the only sound after I finished my rant.

          “I’ll do it,” Sam said. He cowered a little when I turned my glare on him, but not enough to back down. “What? You’re not  _my_  assistant.”

          You’ve gotta be kidding me. It was like freaking tug-of-war. First I was trying to convince Sam. But then I decided that I didn’t want to anymore. Then Dean was trying to convince me. So I had to un-convince him. And now Sam was jumping in again?

          “How did I ever live with the two of you and remain sane?”

          “You said that Crowley would meet us at the road, right?” Sam said and started walking towards the edge of the property. His mind was made up, but I still had a few minutes to change his mind.

          And I would have to resort to begging.

          Dashing in front of him, I held my hands out and drew him to a stop. “Please, Sam. Just turn around and go back inside.”

          “Why are you so adamant about this?  _You_  woke  _me_  up, remember?”

          “And that was a mistake. Look, I just… I didn’t think this through. I didn’t think about what would happen after you remembered. I’m scared that your hero mentality will take over and you’ll see that the other timeline needs you more than this one does. I’m scared that you two will want to go back and save it. Because if you go back, I’ll lose you.”

          “You won’t lose us,” Dean started to console me, but he  _just didn’t get it_.

          “I can’t go back, Dean. I just can’t. Addy is alive over here. If I choose to go back, it’ll be just like I killed her again. So if you two choose to leave, then that’s it. We’ll never see each other again.” My voice broke, but I didn’t waver. This was too important. Choosing between my daughter—niece. My niece—and the Winchesters would break me in two, but I knew where I would end up.

          “Just let it go, please.” I continued in a low voice filled with tears when they remained silent for a long minute. “It’s better that you don’t open the door to that world of pain. Believe me when I say that this life, this timeline, it’s  _so_  much better.”

          Here, I had Addy  _and_  the Winchesters. I had a past that wasn’t riddled with horrifying mistakes. I had a normal life. Here, I had everything I ever wanted. I had Addy, a good relationship with my brother, a good job, an actual social life, and…

          Dean. Here, I had Dean.

          Even if I didn’t  _have him_ , have him, I still had him in my life. I could still talk to him and he was still my friend.

          Dean closed his eyes for a moment while Sam raked his fingers through his hair. Finally, Dean looked at me and spoke in a soft voice. “What did you want me to have remembered earlier today?”

          “What?”

          “You asked if I remembered anything besides my parents and when I said I didn’t, you were disappointed. Why?”

          Oh.

          Well. That’s not really something I wanted to get into at the moment.

          “It doesn’t matter,” I mumbled, lying. But it did. It mattered to me. And it mattered to Dean in the other timeline. Because love was a word that only brought weakness in a hunter’s life, but Dean and I had loved each other over there. The kiss we shared in the RV only touched on the tip of the iceberg.

          Here though… Here I was his assistant and he was my boss.

          As soon as we got back to the city and our real lives, I would have to push away those feelings and memories. All that we could be was friends, and I would have to learn to live with that.

          “If you’re not going to tell me, then I’ll just have to find out for myself,” Dean said confidently and resumed his purposeful stride towards the road, and towards Crowley.

          I couldn’t bring myself to follow them. To beg. To stop them. I just watched them walk away. The two brothers, side by side, walking down a dirt road as the darkness curled around them.

          If they took the drug, then everything would change. The entire dynamic between us would mutate. Feelings that had been fostered in the hostile environment of the other timeline would be brought into this one. Feelings that maybe didn’t belong here.

          Because this was a completely different life.

          But they’d made up their minds, and I’d run out of arguments.

          “Y/N, you just gonna stand there?” Dean asked, looking over his shoulder.

          I took a deep, steadying breath before putting one foot in front of the other and following them. Maybe something would happen in the few minutes before we met Crowley and they would change their minds.

          Dean dropped back and walked beside me. “You really believe this crap Crowley is selling about different timelines?”

          How to best answer that? This was way too complicated for a simple answer, but when I looked over at him and saw that face that I once loved so much, it all boiled down to a single sentence. “It feels too real to be fake.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The three of you meet up with Crowley and you keep trying to talk the Winchesters out of taking the drug

**~Reader’s POV~**

          “You got both of them to come! That’s great,” Crowley greeted jovially.

          In the next second, Dean’s fist not-so-jovially connected with the side of Crowley’s face.

          “What was that for?” Crowley’s voice squeaked up an octave as he grabbed at his nose that was already bleeding. At least it didn’t look broken. Here, Crowley couldn’t just snap his fingers and mend his bones.

          Neither I nor Sam moved, but Crowley’s goons started menacingly towards Dean. Crowley, however, waved them back. It was probably just a show of good faith, trying to get Dean to let down his guard a little. Whatever it was, I was glad. I knew that Dean could handle himself, but didn’t like watching him do it.

          “That was for pointing a gun at Y/N.”

          Dammit. Those feelings from the other timeline came rushing in at the sight of Dean standing up for me like this. But I didn’t have any room for them. I was a different person here than I was there. And so was Dean. That made all of these weird feelings of love null and void. All that I had room for here was a normal crush on my hot boss.

          But I was quickly learning that normal wasn’t really in the cards for me anymore.

          If  _I_  was this confused, then just imagine what would happen when Dean remembered how he felt over there too. All of those overwhelming emotions between us couldn’t be good.

          “ _That’s_  why you came here, Squirrel? To punch me?”

          Dean crossed his arms and nodded towards the briefcase that was on the ground beside Crowley. “I also came for that.”

          “You’re not getting it,” I said quietly, but as firmly as I could muster.

          Dean just rolled his eyes at me. “We’ve already been over this, Y/N.”

          “Yes, darling. If the Winchester wants to remember, then who are you to stand in his way?” Crowley pitched in, still holding his face and looking like a wounded puppy. Dean clearly didn’t like Crowley backing him up, because he took another swing at him. Somehow I knew that was coming, because I reacted quickly enough to grab Dean’s arm and pull him to the side.

          “ _That’s_  why he’s not taking the drug. Crowley, you really think he’s going to be able to control his anger with all those memories when he can  _barely_  control it now?”

          Crowley inclined his head and narrowed his eyes knowingly towards me. “Is it his anger that you’re really worried about, or the flip side of the coin?”

          At my words, Dean jerked his arm out of my grip and raised an eyebrow at me. “What’s he talking about, Y/N?”

          Yeah, I wasn’t about to touch that topic. Maybe the one I brought up…

          “Nothing, Dean. But… But I just don’t think you know what you’re signing up for.”

          “Because you won’t tell me.”

          Would that do the trick? Give him and Sam a little taste of their lives in the other timeline to convince them they didn’t want to know the rest? Well, it was worth a shot.

          “You already know that your parents are dead over there. And I told you that half the people in that house are dead too. What you don’t know is  _how_  they died. You don’t know how badly that messed you up. So many of them sacrificed themselves for you.” And Kevin…

          Crowley jumped in, cutting me off. “Why are you telling them these things when they can just take the drug and remember it all?”

          I didn’t look away from the brothers. “Because knowing and remembering are two completely different things. If you take that drug, you’re opening yourselves up to an entire world of hurt. Over here, you were raised right. Your mother gave you emotional support. Your dad played catch with you and joked around. You went to high school dances and stayed on the same high school wrestling team for all four years. You had summer jobs and both of you graduated college.

          “Over here, you’re both whole. You know how to deal with your problems. Over there? Your mom died and your dad raised you like soldiers. Over there, you deal with your problems by burying them in gallons of alcohol. If you take that drug, you’re just going to let in an entire world of pain that you have no idea how to deal with because you never dealt with it over there.”

          “Is that what happened to you when you took the drug?” Sam asked, getting right to the middle of what I didn’t want to discuss. “You have these problems that you never dealt with?”

          “Yes.” Blunt honesty. That was all that I had left. “I managed to stay away from drugs after my daughter died, but I just traded one addiction for another—hunting. Killing things—and now I don’t know how to cope. I don’t want you two to go through this too.”

          Dean had been staring off into the distance, eyebrows drawn together in intense thought for the last half of my speech. Still not looking at me, he spoke. “It’s not your decision to make, Y/N.”

          “I know.” But how I wished it was. I couldn’t make their decisions for them. But I was still in charge of my own future. And if I couldn’t convince the Winchesters, then maybe I could flip Crowley. “Crowley, if you give them the drug, then I won’t do whatever it is you want me to. Not a chance.”

          “You’ve made it pretty clear that you won’t be doing it either way. At least this way, the Winchesters have a chance at convincing you.”

          Why was I having such bad luck with arguments tonight? It was like I was the only one who could see clearly. No one believed me that I knew what was best. They were only thinking of themselves and—

          I needed them to think about something other than themselves. They needed to realize just how far I was willing to go to keep them safe. They  _needed_  to see the reality of the situation. It was a fundamental part of myself to hide just how bad I was hurting. I didn’t ever want to stir someone’s sympathies on my behalf.

          But if that was what it took, then maybe it was time I really show them how I was handling everything. Or not handling everything.

          Maybe that would convince them that they didn’t want the drug.

          “In the car, earlier, you told me: once an addict, always an addict.” Hopefully this was an ace up my sleeve, and not just a bunch of brightly colored handkerchiefs tied together in an endless rope. “Well, if you give them  _that_  drug, then I can guarantee you that I will go out and find the real stuff for myself. Pick up right where I left off. You need me, for some reason. That means that you probably need me sober, clean, and capable of making my own decisions. You need me  _alive.”_

          “Y/N, what are you—“

          I cut Dean off in favor of continuing my pseudo negotiation, but mostly ultimatum, with Crowley. “After everything I’ve remembered today, after everything I’ve done, and how I haven’t worked through any of my issues because I was such a repressor in the other timeline, do you  _really_  think I have the willpower to stop once I get that high again?”

          When I’d injected myself with the needle earlier, I could have sworn my body remembered every single time I’d shot up in the other timeline. It had prepared itself for the release that it knew was coming. I wasn’t in withdrawal, or even in danger of relapsing, but I could feel it on the edge. I knew that it would only take one time for me to completely fall in.

          “I’m barely holding on. If you give them the drug and make them remember all of the horrible things they’ve done, you know that I’m going to blame myself and there ain’t nothing you can do to convince me otherwise.”

          “Y/N,” Dean tried to get my attention again, but I wasn’t done.

          “Once an addict, always an addict, right Crowley? You gave me the keys to the car to drive myself right off the edge of the cliff. It’s only fair that I do the same for you.”

          To clarify my last sentence, I held out my arm as if offering him my blood. My human blood. I hadn’t forgotten his addiction, and judging by the way his eyes latched right onto my veins, neither had he. Sure, I was being a bit dramatic, but any situation with Crowley warranted a little drama.

          “You can feel it, can’t you? You want it. It wouldn’t take much. And once you had a taste, you wouldn’t be able to stop.” His eyes slowly wandered up to mine and I delivered my ultimatum. “So tell me, Crowley. Are you willing to risk my life on the off chance that the Winchesters will agree with you, then be able to convince me to kill Addy again just so we can go back to that horrible timeline? You give them that drug, and we all lose.”

          It was just like in the movies where there is complete silence after the character delivers their last line and does a mic drop. All eyes on me. Only the cool midnight breeze to prove that everything hadn’t frozen.

          “Damn,” Sam whispered. “Now I see why you hired her as your assistant, Dean.”

          I kept my eyes on Crowley. He was the supplier. If he gave in, then I wouldn’t have to worry if I’d convinced the Winchesters. No drug, no problem.

          Crowley finally inclined his head and took a step back. I was  _just_ starting to relax when he nodded at his two goons and they both surged forward. I struggled against their hold, but it proved useless when I was handcuffed to the chain-link fence in the next moment. Both Sam and Dean had rushed forward to tear the men off of me, but they stopped when the goons stepped back of their own free will.

          “What are you  _doing_ , Crowley?” Anxiety coated my words and I pulled against the cool metal of the cuff, completely disregarding the pain it caused my wrist.

          “Taking your power away from you. You can’t go find anything to OD on if you can’t leave. Now the boys can make their own decisions without the guilt-trip you just took them on.”

          He looked all too pleased with himself as he turned back to the Winchesters and opened the briefcase where three vials were nestled in a nest of dramatic black velvet. Two were full of the purple liquid that I’d injected myself a few hours earlier. One was smaller, but had a much darker, almost black liquid filling it.

          “Well, boys? What’ll it be?”

* * *

**~Dean’s POV~**

          What’ll it be? I could barely figure out what just happened. The ramifications of Y/N’s speech. How deep her feelings went on this issue. I thought I knew her pretty well, but in the past twenty-four hours I realized just how wrong I was.

          Well, I knew the Y/N that didn’t believe the fairytale that Crowley fed her. Or, I guess, the nightmare. Would she really run off to find something to overdose on if Sam and I took  _this_  drug? Or was that just bluster and manipulation?

          And if Y/N was changed that much from taking this drug and having these memories, what would happen to me? Assuming I believed, of course.

          And I didn’t.

          But if I did, then what kind of a person was I? Raised like a soldier, alcoholic, used to people I love dying… And what had Y/N meant when she said that I didn’t know how my friends and family died? Was there a reason that was significant? Even with our team here, we all understood that we might need to sacrifice ourselves for the greater good. Why was it such a big deal over there?

          And Sam? My little brother. I couldn’t imagine him drinking away the pain. He would never survive a soldier’s life. He was just too  _good_ and there was no way he could be that different in the other timeline.

          I didn’t believe, but I  _was_  curious.

          “Dean,” Sam said, drawing my attention to him. When I looked over, he just raised his eyebrow, silently asking what I was thinking. I responded by tilting my head and pursing my lips to let him know that I had no idea, but I was thinking about it. Sam widened his eyes and bobbed his head to the side in understanding, on the same page.

          “I hate when they do that,” Crowley said amicably to Y/N, as if they were friends. I had no idea what it was about the guy, but every time he moved, I had the nearly uncontrollable urge to punch him.

          Y/N just ignored him. “Dean, I’m begging you.”

          And there it was. The way she said my name. It was different than the way she said it the entire year she’d worked for me. It was more familiar. There were layers to that one single word. I  _had_  to know why. “I’m sorry, Y/N.”

          She squeezed her eyes shut in defeat and let her head fall back against the chain-link fence with a rattle.

          “Good, good,” Crowley said, carefully taking the two vials with the same liquid out “I knew you boys would make the right decision.”

          It felt so wrong that the right decision was something that Crowley wanted and that Y/N was fighting against.

          But this was. I had to do this. If there was a completely different version of me, then I deserved to know.

          “Here you boys go, don’t drop it. This stuff was not cheap.” Honestly, by that point, everything out of Crowley’s mouth sounded like the teacher in Peanuts.  _Wah, Wah, Wah._  I’d made my decision and I just wanted him to shut up.

          He handed me the vial and I stared at the small amount of mystery liquid inside. This was what had confused Y/N so much. This tiny little thing. And here I was, getting ready to follow in her footsteps.

          “You’ll wanna sit down before you shoot up,” Y/N said in a flat voice. “Or lay down.”

          “What?” Sam seemed as confused by her helpfulness as I was.

          She seemed annoyed by our reactions. “What? I don’t want you to, but since you  _are_ , I don’t want you to fall down and hit your head when you pass out.”

          “Pass out?”

          “Yeah. It’ll feel like you’re starting to get high and things will start to look wacky and a little 70s psychedelic, but after a minute or two of that, you’ll pass out and feel like you’re dreaming or hallucinating. It feels like, well, an entire lifetime. But apparently I was only out for, like, twenty minutes.”

          Knowing what to expect made this easier. I still hated the look of betrayal on Y/N’s face, but this was something I  _had_  to do. “Well, Y/N? Last chance to stop us.”

          I prided myself on being able to read her expressions and microexpressions and body language, but the way she held herself when her eyes locked with mine just then… I had absolutely no idea what was going through her head. This wasn’t  _my_  Y/N.

          Finally she sighed and looked away. “Just keep in mind that these are two separate timelines. Whatever you remember from the other one doesn’t have  _any_  bearing on this one. We don’t have to bring things over. Just like Vegas, what happened over there, can stay over there.”

_What_  was she trying to hide? Was I really such a horrible person?

          “Just like you let your daughter’s death stay over there?” Crowley challenged with an air of arrogance.

          This time, Sam had to hold me back. “Dean, let’s just get this over with.”

          It wasn’t the first time I’d done drugs, but I always stayed away from the hardcore stuff that went right into my bloodstream. Sam as well. So we had to rely on Crowley explaining what to do all while feeling the heavy weight of Y/N’s eyes on me. She pitched in every once in a while with her two cents, and it surprised me how much she knew about… well… all of this. And  _that_  was enough to almost make me back out. The Y/N that I knew wouldn’t have a clue about any of this. She wouldn’t have tips about the right way to stick a needle in your arm so it didn’t hurt as bad later. Or how to find the right vein on the first try. Or to double check that the needle was clean because you can never trust the person giving it to you.

          But the Y/N that came out of the other timeline knew these things. And she knew them well. It made me ache for her, just wondering what kind of a life she believed she had led.

          “Last chance,” she whispered once we were finished preparing ourselves.

          I locked eyes with her and strengthened my resolve. “See you on the other side, sweetheart.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean remembers some things from the other timeline

**~Dean’s POV~**

          “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I yelled at the woman who had, literally, just jumped in front of the werewolf that had been trying to kill me for the past ten minutes.

          “Saving your ass, apparently. Don’t worry. I’m not expecting any thanks.”

          “Thanks? You nearly got yourself killed.”

          A strange expression flickered across her face… disappointment? But it was gone in an instant and I was too fired up to linger on it. “I know what I’m doing, jerkwad.”

_Jerkwad_? What was this, seventh grade?

          “Stay out of my way next time,” I spat out before grabbing my silver knife that had skidded halfway across the room sometime during my fight with the wolf.

          “Next time? Don’t worry, buddy. I don’t make the same mistake twice, and apparently saving your ungrateful ass is a mistake.” She pushed past me in a flurry of anger and I totally did  _not_  watch  _her_  ass as she walked away.

          What?

          I  _was_  a guy, after all.

* * *

          “Do you know what today is?” Y/N swung her half-empty bottle of beer around, her fingers lightly gripping the cool, glass neck. I just grunted and shrugged, finishing off my own bottle. “Today marks the one year anniversary of the time  _you_  almost died and I saved you for the first time.”

          “Ah.” I remembered that day well. “You were so snotty. I hated you right off the bat.”

          “Yet you still got me out of that sticky situation two weeks later.”

          I chuckled at the memory. “Man, you were a horrible hunter. Good at killing things, but not so good at researching the hard things to kill.”

          “In my defense, I don’t think even  _you_ would have figured out that it was an ancient Malaysian spirit that we were hunting if it hadn’t been for Sam.”

          Okay. She might have had a point there. But I wasn’t about to let her off the hook that easily. “At least I didn’t think it was just a normal ghost.  _I_  knew that it was, at least, some weird, special, crazy ghost.”

          “God, I hated you so much.” Y/N laughed freely, something that she had been doing a lot more lately. The first few months I knew her, she kept everything close to her chest. Emotions, thoughts, intentions… There were dozens of thick, brick walls surrounding her, keeping her isolated from the world.

          I don’t know how, but those walls had fallen down in the last few weeks. And I liked what was behind them. So much more than I should have.

          But I didn’t care.

          I didn’t care that her laugh made me feel a little more hopeful. I didn’t care that I could practically  _feel_  the raining storm cloud hovering over her head when she was mad. I didn’t care that Sam teased me about how I stopped flirting with women at bars recently. I didn’t care that a single smile from Y/N could turn even my worst day into something that was bearable.

          I didn’t care that she was making me into some stupid fool over her.

          I didn’t care about the consequences, because for once in my life things felt… good.

          “Hey Dean?” Her soft voice broke through my thoughts and I hummed in reply. “I’m really glad you don’t have that giant stick up your ass anymore.”

          Yeah.

          So was I.

* * *

          It was a rough hunt. We were too late. Sure, the monster was dead. But so were the kids. The impala was silent on the ride back to the motel. Up front, Sam and I were dealing with the failure as we always did: trying to get past it as quickly as possible. But I could tell that Y/N wasn’t having as much luck as we were. Maybe it was because she hadn’t been hunting as long as we had. But something told me that telling her “It gets easier” would not be welcome.

          As soon as I parked, she was out of the car and halfway to her room. Sam jerked his head towards her retreating form and I nodded soberly. Sam could be alone right now. I knew he could handle it. I wasn’t too sure about Y/N though.

          She didn’t answer when I knocked on her door.

          “C’mon, sweetheart. I know you’re in there. Open the door.”

          Silence.

          I knocked again. “I’m not going anywhere. So unless you want me to freeze right outside your door, you better let me in.”

          “I’m fine.” Finally. A response. A lie, but still a response.

          “Yeah, and I’m the Queen of Shiba. C’mon, Y/N/N. We don’t have to talk. I’m just not going to let you be alone right now.”

          “I don’t remember the last time I  _let_  anyone tell me what to do,” came her annoyed response as the door swung open and she glared at me. Annoyance was good. I could work with that.

          Pushing past her, I didn’t give her the chance to shut the door in my face. “Tough luck. I hope you stashed some beer in that mini-fridge because it’s a hell of a lot easier to get through nights like these when you’re not completely sober.”

          “You’re annoying, you know that?”

          “If by  _annoying_  you mean _insanely sexy and funny_  then yes, I know that.”

          And that managed to wrangle a soft laugh from her. Satisfied that she would recover from the failed hunt, I tossed her a bottle of beer and we sat side-by-side on the bed and watched horrible, midnight television.

          I’m not sure how it happened, but sometime later, the bedside table held our empty beer bottles, the floor was littered with our clothes, and Y/N’s body was tangled with mine.

* * *

          She tiptoed into my room, softly closing the door behind her. For months now, we’d been slowly moving towards this.

          It started out with a few tipsy nights of distraction sex. After a particularly difficult hunt, or when something personal came up that we just wanted to forget, we would find ourselves between the sheets of the nearest hotel room. Then we would end up together in the bunker on nights when Sam left on a solo hunt, or out on some Ghandi,  _Pray, Eat, Love_  soul-searching trip. Nights like that eventually morphed into sneaking around when Sam was home, just so we could draw on the comfort of sharing a bed. It wasn’t even about sex anymore, and I had no idea how it happened.

          But I liked it.

          “Hey, baby,” I greeted sleepily, opening my arms for her. She fit right against me like two cogs in a machine. “Gave up on research?”

          “Never started. I just flipped through books so Sam wouldn’t feel alone.”

_That_  made me chuckle. It was a reminder of the first few weeks after we met. “How in the world did you survive without us?”

          She drew in a sharp breath and tensed up. What had I said?

          “Dean, I—I wasn’t. Living, I mean. I, uh, I wasn’t in the best place…”

          The strain and trauma in her voice cut me to the core. I shifted onto my side and cupped her cheek with my hand, turning her face up to mine. “Listen, you don’t have to tell me anything that you don’t want to. The past is in the past.”

          “I know.” She wasn’t very convincing. “But I want to. I don’t… I don’t want to have the weight of this secret anymore.”

          And slowly and softly, she unwound the suffocating rope of mystery around her past. The accident that took her parents. Her subsequent addiction to drugs and the escalation. The pregnancy that forced her to clean up her act for a few months. Her post-partum depression that drove her back to the hard drugs that most people stay away from. And the cold slap in the face of reality when she realized that her baby girl wasn’t breathing.

          My heart forgot how to beat. How she managed to go through all of that and still fight every day was beyond me.

* * *

          “I’m not talking about this with you, Sam,” Y/N’s annoyed voice pulled me towards the kitchen. Sam and Y/N nearly always got along. It was kind of freaky how they never fought. Of course, sometimes they got annoyed with each other and when that happened, it was always fun to watch.

          “So I’m right?”

          I rounded the corner just in time to see Sam sit back, arms crossed over his chest, and a smug grin cover his face.

          “No, and even if you were, it’s none of your business.”

          He laughed softly. “Defensive. I’m just waiting for you to stick your tongue out at me and tell me to get lost.”

          “This isn’t a 90s sitcom. It’s my life. Emphasis on the  _my_.”

          “What’s going on?” I needed some backstory in order to enjoy this encounter more. And some popcorn. That would be good too.

          “Y/N hasn’t been sleeping in her own room lately. I think she’s been sneaking out to see her  _secret boyfriend_.” Sam narrowed his eyes at her, and that was normally when I knew it would get good. He was completely focused.

          Which usually meant that the truth was about to come out.

          “Secret boyfriend, huh?” I asked, hoping I could keep the nervous edge out of my voice. We hadn’t discussed it, but both of us seemed to intuitively feel like what was happening between us should stay between us. If Sam knew, then all of the sudden, everything would become more  _real_.

          Boyfriend.

          Was that me? Was I her boyfriend? Was she my girlfriend?

          “I don’t—” She cut herself off when her eyes met mine. I knew that she was mirroring my own thoughts.

          What  _were_  we? Friends, yes. Hunting partners, obviously. Lovers? The word made me cringe. Dating? Exclusive? Well, I hadn’t slept with anyone else since that first night and I don’t think she had either.

          “You don’t what? Have a boyfriend?” Sam prompted when her silence grew into a minute. “If you can’t even finish that sentence, then obviously you  _do_.”

          And just like that, Sam had the Define The Relationship talk for us. I sat back in my chair, out of breath suddenly for some reason. “Yeah, Y/N. Sounds like you have a boyfriend.”

* * *

          “It’s a stupid idea, right?” I wasn’t really asking for Sam’s opinion by that point. I was more asking just to keep talking so I wouldn’t dwell too much on the subject at hand. It’s funny how you can just talk forever about something, but not really think about it at all. “Yeah. Really stupid. I should just forget about it.”

          “I don’t think it’s a st—“

          “Y/N’s gonna think it’s really stupid. Just forget I said anything.”

          Sam laughed, which startled me. What was funny about this situation?

          “Dude, she’s going to think it’s stupid. Yeah. But she also thinks you’re pretty stupid, and she’s still with you so… For some reason she actually  _likes_  the stupid stuff you do.”

          “But we’re both hunters. It’s gonna end bloody. Best to just keep things as they are.” The more I thought about the reasons this wouldn’t work, the more reasons I could come up with. “Besides, she doesn’t even wear jewelry.”

          With a shrug, Sam ordered another beer. “She likes necklaces. She told me that once. Just doesn’t have reason to wear any.”

          “I can’t get her a  _necklace_.”

          “Why? ‘Cause it’s not traditional?” Sam challenged. “You  _just_  said that you’re both hunters. Do you really think Y/N’s gonna want  _anything_  traditional? It doesn’t have to be a ring, and you don’t have to go through the whole  _I Do_  thing. I don’t think you actually can, since we’ve been declared legally dead about ten times now and if you tried to actually get a marriage license then the FBI and who knows who else would be hot on our tails. Again.”

          “Exactly. What’s the point? Besides, we have this crap with the Titans to worry about.”

          I couldn’t believe I was actually talking about marrying someone. Out of everything I’d expected in this life,  _marriage_  wasn’t even on the list. I’d barely known Y/N for two years. It was only a few months since we’d slipped up in front of Sam and he found out about us, which happened about a week after he made us realize that we were dating.

          I was crazy. That was it. This idea was crazy.

          “The point,” Sam cut in with a meaningful look, “Is that you’re trying hard to talk yourself out of this. Harder than I’ve seen you try about anything. But somehow, you’re still thinking about it. I think that’s a pretty big indicator that maybe you should start thinking of the reasons this  _could_  work.”

_Not_  the advice I was looking for. And it was past time to change the subject. “What’s she doing now?”

          Sam gave me a long, flat glare that told me he knew  _exactly_  what I was doing, but after a moment he gave in and looked over my shoulder at where Y/N was hustling some poor bastard at pool. I’d learned long ago that I needed to have my back to her when she was doing her thing.

          Let’s just say that jealousy was definitely something I should work on.

          “He’s all over her, but this is the third game, so she’s about to completely smoke him.”

          “Nah. She has one more. When we came in, she was just starting the first game and she was playing for drinks, not cash. She’s still hustlin’ ‘im.”

          I was good at hustling pool. And Sam wasn’t too bad either. But Y/N? She put both of us to shame. Unfortunately for me, she had to make the guy believe he could take her home and that meant that I had to watch some other guy put his hands all over my girl.

          It was easier to just not watch. As long as I didn’t see it, I could focus on the fact that she would be sharing my bed every night. I trusted her and she could handle herself.

          “Well, while you try to figure out what kind of necklace Y/N would like, I’m going to try my luck with that brunette over there.” Sam nodded towards the other end of the bar, and I followed his eyes to a hot brunette in business casual. She looked like the smart, corporate type. So, she basically looked like Sam’s type.

          “We’ve gotta leave in fifteen to meet Crowley.”

          Sam just shrugged. “We’re in town for another week or so.”

          No sooner had Sam disappeared than a woman came up and took his spot. She turned her sultry smile on me. “Hey there, handsome.”

          I just nodded once politely and turned back to my glass of whiskey. Apparently she thought I was a challenge, because she leaned forward until the front of her shirt gaped and I would have gotten a front row seat to her cleavage if I had been interested.

          But I wasn’t.

          Because my girl was a few yards away, using that same move to scam some idiot.

          “Haven’t seen you around before. Why don’t you buy a girl a drink and you can tell me a little about yourself.”

          Her fingers had been lightly trailing up my arm, but I shook them off. “I’m already buying another girl drinks tonight. You’ll have better luck with someone else.”

          “Oh really? Then why haven’t I seen you with anyone except that other man you came in with? She must not be too smart if she lets a guy like you be alone in a place like this.”

          “ _She’s_  right here,” Y/N’s annoyed voice came from behind me just before I felt her arms snake around my shoulders and her cheek right by mine. “And  _she_  trusts him to not fall for some skank’s slutty routine.”

          “Excuse me?”

          Cat fight? Was I about to see Y/N get into a jealous cat fight with another woman over me? I knew I should step in and cool the situation down, but  _God_  Y/N’s jealousy was so hot.

          “You heard me, bitch. You can try to get into his pants all you want tonight, but he’s going to be in  _my_ bed.”

          “You have  _no_  idea who you’re dealing with,” the other woman snarled.

          “You’re right,” Y/N agreed easily. “I don’t. And I never will because we’re leaving.”

          Aww. No cat fight? “We are?”

          “It’s almost midnight, baby. We’ve got that meeting with your brother and your douche of a demon friend.”

          Damn it. Y/N was right. As much as I wanted to see her deck that other woman and defend my honor, it would have to wait. Crowley was going to be waiting for us in our hotel room with an update on his part of the plan.

          Working with Crowley.

          It made my skin crawl.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean wake up from their memories of the other timeline

**~Dean’s POV~**

          It was just like waking up, but about seventeen times harder. I could’ve sworn that my head was going to split in two from all of the new memories and an entirely different lifetime that was squished in there right next to my life here.

          I understood now.

          There wasn’t a seed of doubt within me that Crowley was lying about the other timeline. Who knew the day would come that I would actually believe a word that guy said?

          But Y/N was right. What I felt for her was too real to be fake.

          Y/N.

          Opening my eyes, I immediately sought her out, but she wasn’t cuffed to the fence anymore. Panic at what Crowley had done with her nearly overtook me. Luckily for him, I was still too lethargic and weighed down with memories that I couldn’t move fast enough to hit him.

          “Dean’s the first to wake. Should’ve guessed. Don’t worry about Y/N. She’s back at the house. She didn’t think it was a good idea for her to be around when you woke up.” Well, one thing was the same between timelines. In both, I wanted to punch Crowley in his stupid British face every time he spoke. It didn’t matter that we were on the same team on the other side, for the time being. There was just too much bad blood for me to completely trust the guy.

          “Alone?” I hadn’t forgotten her threat about going back to drugs.

          “Yes,” he said sarcastically. “Because I’m a complete idiot. I sent Ralph there to watch her, then the sheriff came out and shooed him away. She’s under the annoying, watchful eye of Jody.”

          Jody. Good. Didn’t negate the worry that I had for her, but focusing on other things was a little easier.

          Like Sam. Who, after a glance his way, was still in dreamland, but appeared unharmed.

          “What the hell did you give us?”

          Crowley settled back on his camp chair—camp chair? When did he get that? “Just a little something to jumpstart some wires in your brain. After I met Y/N in your office, I remembered  _everything_. She’s special, for some reason. Nothing happened when I’ve met with you before, but as soon as she told me that I would have to wait,  _BOOM!_ Everything came rushing in.”

          I already knew that Y/N was special.

          “Then why did it take whatever was in those vials for the three of  _us_ to remember?”

          “My theory is that I reacted differently to whatever the hell happened to send us to this timeline than you guys did because I’m a demon. Plus, I like my life better over there. The whole demonic powers and stuff. You guys, however, seem to appreciate the life in  _this_  timeline better. I’m not a therapist, but I would guess your brains were fighting against the memories.”

          The memories of my mother burning on the ceiling? The memories of my dad sacrificing himself for me? Of Sam dying in my arms? The memories of Hell? Of my brother losing his soul? Of all the things I did as a demon?

          I hated when Crowley made sense.

          “What  _is_  in the vials?”

          “I’m glad you asked, Dean.” And that brought out a groan from me. I hated his stupid explanations. “After Y/N sparked my own memories, I brainstormed ways to make the three of you remember. It took a few hours, but I finally went to a neuro science and cognitive psychologist and they told me of a serum they were working on that would help unlock latent memories and expand brain function. I had them fine-tune a few things, then came out here, looking for Y/N—“

          He was cut off by my fist. In his face. Again.

          And it felt just as damn good as it had the first time.

          “ _That_  was for using Y/N as a guinea pig.”

          “We are  _on_  the  _same side_ , Dean!”

          I honestly don’t know why he was making such a big deal out of a few punches. He’d had worse. And it wasn’t like he was going to get any sympathy from present company.

          “You might want to have a conversation with her before you keep defending her. She seems pretty set on staying away from you.”

          Now,  _them’s_  fightin’ words.

          Apparently Crowley’s henchmen thought so too, because I found myself being held back by the two oversized idiots. As much as I tried fighting against them, I just couldn’t. That stupid drug had sapped my strength and whatever strength I had gotten back had been used to punch Crowley.

          Since I couldn’t fight with my fists, I would have to settle for words. “You don’t know  _anything_  about her.”

          Sam chose that moment to begin waking up, but it didn’t exactly diffuse any tension.

          How  _dare_  Crowley say  _anything_  about Y/N? About our relationship? He had  _no_  idea! I’d been thinking about fucking marrying her in the other timeline, and struggling to keep my attraction to her under wraps in this timeline. And I  _knew_  that these feelings weren’t just one sided.

          “Wha—Dean?” Alarm filled Sam’s eyes when he saw how I was being restrained. Crowley nodded at his two idiots and they released me. “What’s happening?”

          “Crowley’s being a dick, as usual. Let’s cut to the chase. Now that we remember, what do you want from us?”

          “Your brains, you moron. We have to get back to the other timeline, and the two of you are the best shot we have.”

          Sam slowly sat up, rubbing his head. “I know I’m late to the party, so if you’ve already gone over this, then just fill me in, but why us? Jody’s alive in the other timeline too. Claire, Alex… Give ‘em the drug too and we can figure it out faster.”

          “I don’t think it will work on them.”

          “Oh great,” I groaned. “Another one of Crowley’s insane theories.”

          He tossed a dirty glare my way, but I really couldn’t give a shit.

          “What’s the last thing both of you remember?”

          Sam’s forehead scrunched up and I looked up at the stars while I thought back.

          “The bar,” Sam said. “Dean and I were talking while Y/N hustled that guy.” Sam slid his wide eyes to me as he remembered the conversation we’d been having, but I quickly shook my head. Crowley definitely didn’t need to know about that. “Then the three of us went back to the hotel to meet with you.”

          “Dean?” Crowley asked.

          I just nodded in confirmation. “Same here.”

          “Me too. And that’s what Y/N said as well. So whatever happened, it was in  _that_  hotel room with the four of us.”

          Have I mentioned how much I hated when Crowley made sense?

          “I don’t know about you, but my brain feels kind of overwhelmed right now,” Sam grumbled. “I need a solid four hours of sleep and a truckload of caffeine.”

_And I need some time with Y/N to figure out where her head is_. Something I thought, but would never say in front of Crowley or his henchmen.

          “Besides, we’ve still got this whole bank tech thing to worry about in  _this_  timeline.” Y/N was pretty adamant about staying in this timeline, and I wasn’t sure if I could handle leaving her. I knew just how much the death of her daughter cut her open, and to have her back here? Even just as her niece? Well, it was a second chance that Y/N would have never even hoped for in the other timeline.

          I couldn’t take that away from her.

          Besides, mom and dad were alive over here. Bobby. Kevin. Benny. Ellen. Here, I had an entire family.

          Over there, it was just the three of us.

          Sure, the world’s situation was a bit more dire, what with the Titans and all. But eventually it was going to have to learn to live without the Winchesters. We weren’t immortal. So why not let it fend for itself now? Hadn’t we done enough?

          “I’m  _not_  letting you two just walk away!” Crowley’s voice did that squeaky thing it always did when he started losing control of a situation.

          “We’ll think about it, Crowley,” I said as I helped Sam up. I don’t know about him, but my muscles forgot how to work correctly.

          Well, except for the arm that punched Crowley. Those muscles worked beautifully.

          “Yeah,” Sam agreed. “We’ll talk it over with Y/N. After we sleep for a while and let our brains get used to having two completely different lives inside.”

          “Humans,” Crowley scoffed.

          I didn’t point out that here, he was human too. Instead, Sam and I hobbled back along the road towards the house. While we walked, I caught him up on everything Crowley had said. I’m sure that once Y/N got involved, we would get a lot more information. After all, she had been with Crowley for six hours. We’d barely been with him for an hour.

          Y/N.

          Her volatile state of mind. Her threat of escaping back to drugs. Sure, Jody was watching her, but that didn’t mean I worried any less about her. The closer we got to the house, the faster I walked.

          And the sooner I was met with Jody’s glare. Y/N was curled up next to her on the couch, sleeping with her head on a pillow in Jody’s lap. Jody was softly running her fingers through Y/N’s hair, much like my mom used to do when I got upset. Her careful touch was at war with the sharp way she was watching me.

          This wasn’t Jody. This was Mama Bear.

          “Boy, I don’t know what you did to this girl, but you’ve got some explaining to do.”

          “What happened? What did she say?” I sank down on the floor in front of her and pulled the blanket that was around her waist until it covered her from toes to neck. There was nothing that could keep me away from Y/N at the moment. Not even Jody’s terrifying, motherly glare.

          “She was cussing you out pretty good. Both of you.” Now Sam had to share in Jody’s glare as well. Sam, however, shrank back under the weight of her eyes. Wimp. “Something about you ruining everything and being too stubborn to see reason. This poor thing is exhausted—she didn’t even last two minutes once I got her to lay down before she passed out—and you two had her tramping around at all hours of the night. I thought your mama taught you better!”

          She did. In this timeline.

          “To be fair, Y/N woke us up. She was the one who started this whole thing tonight,” I whispered, unable to tear my eyes from her face. So many memories. So many feelings. I understood the look Y/N gave me when she first saw me after getting her memories back.

          It was like seeing a familiar face for the very first time.

          I couldn’t let her go. I couldn’t lose her. I don’t know why she didn’t want me to remember how I felt—feel about her, but I wasn’t about to let her get away from me. She could push against me all she wanted, but I wasn’t going to loosen my hold.

          If she wanted to stay in this timeline, then I was all too glad to comply. I had a pretty sweet gig. I loved my job, loved working with my team, loved monthly dinners with my parents and Sam. Remembering the other timeline served to make me appreciate everything that much more. Here, I’d only gone to jail when I snuck in to talk to one of the inmates and get some intel from him. Here, I bought Mother’s and Father’s Day cards every year. Here, I helped Sam with his relationship problems, not devil problems.

          I liked who I was here.

          “Y/N woke  _me_ up,” Sam pointed out, drawing me out of my thoughts. “ _You_  followed and eavesdropped.”

          Jody’s sharp gaze sliced into me, but I refused to look away from Y/N. I wasn’t about to apologize for pushing my way into that conversation. She should have included me in the first place. “Way to throw me under the bus, dude.”

          When it became clear I wasn’t going to say anything else to explain myself, Jody sighed heavily. “Dean, it’s obvious that you have some very real feelings for this girl. And I know from experience that no one gets _that_  mad at someone unless they have feelings for them too. I just want you to take a step back and look at the situation. Make sure you aren’t taking advantage of Y/N when she’s weak and vulnerable. She’s just been dragged out of her life and into your crazy secret, world-saving, alter ego world. Slow down and take it easy.”

          “I’ve tried to take it slow,” I muttered, thinking back to my hesitancy when Y/N and I started getting emotionally involved over there. I thought about the past few months with her as my assistant and how I tried pushing away feelings. “I didn’t get very far.”

          “Dean Winchester—“

          “Look, Jody. I love you and I respect your opinions. You know that. But this thing with me and Y/N? It’s… complicated.”

          “That’s an understatement,” Sam scoffed, drawing Jody’s attention. He rushed to clarify himself. “Jodes, he’s right. Him and Y/N? They’re a good thing.”

          “You’re a good man, Dean. But I’m warning you: if you hurt this precious Y/N who didn’t ask to be dragged into this, then I will skin you alive.”

          “Noted.” I wasn’t going to hurt her. I would  _never_  hurt her. “Now, I’m going to pick her up and take her back to bed. Are you going to bite my hands off?”

          She rolled her eyes and lifted her hands from Y/N’s head. It was a clear signal for me to take her. “You behave yourself.”

          Just until I could get her alone and convince her that us being together was a good thing in any timeline.

          But once I convinced her of that, all bets were off.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You wake up the next morning and deal with Dean

**~Reader’s POV~**

          Those moments before you completely wake up have got to be some of the weirdest moments in life. For instance, I had the strangest feeling that I was in a bed, when I had clearly fallen asleep on the couch with Jody.

          As far as I knew, teleportation wasn’t one of my skills in either timeline.

          My eyes cautiously opened and saw that I was, indeed, back in the bedroom. Did that mean that last night never happened? It was just a nightmare? That I never woke up Sam? And Dean never followed us? The only bad part if that was true was that Dean wouldn’t have punched Crowley.

          Oh well. He would probably have plenty of opportunities to rectify that in the future.

          “Morning,” Dean’s low, grumbly, morning voice rumbled from beside me. I turned my head and immediately cursed myself for not preparing myself for the sight. Because, let me tell you, Dean Winchester in the morning is definitely a sight to behold. Sleep was still lingering around the corners of his eyes, his short hair was sticking up on one side of his head and completely plastered to the other side, and there was that lazy half-smile on his lips.

          Damn it.

          My heart hadn’t gotten the memo that I wasn’t in love with him in this timeline.

          “Were you watching me sleep?”

          “Just for a few minutes. You know, you always get this little wrinkle right here,” he reached over and brushed at the spot between my eyebrows, brushing away any sanity I had along with it, “And you always get all curled up in a ball whenever you’re feeling stressed? It’s kinda cute.”

          “Well, I think  _this_  counts as a stressful situation, don’t—” Crap. The full meaning of his words sank in and my heart dropped a little. He’d never slept with me in this timeline. If he knew my sleeping habits when I was stressed, that meant… “I didn’t just dream last night, did I? You remember.”

          “I do. You’ve got some explainin’ to do, sweetheart.”

_That_  was  _not_  something I was about to do. Especially not when I’d just woken up. But he was watching me with those eyes that were so easy to fall into, and his arm was draped around my waist, and the room was just dark enough to—

          Stop! Wrong feelings. Wrong timeline.

          “You didn’t listen to me last night. Why would I think that you’ll listen today?”

          “Try me.”

_Turn down the challenge, Y/N. You don’t have to accept every challenge someone—_ “I was trying to protect you—“

          “Nope. Not that. I get that you didn’t want me to remember the bad parts. I  _completely_  understand that. I probably would have done the same. But you didn’t want me to remember  _us_. Why?”

          Confusion and hurt filled his expression and I felt some of my defenses fall away. He needed an explanation and he wasn’t going to let up until he got one.

          So I sighed before beginning an explanation I hoped he would accept. “Because we aren’t the same people here. I don’t want whatever feelings we had over there to bleed into this timeline where we aren’t running for our lives every day. Things are different here, Dean.  _We_  are different.”

          “If you honestly believe that there was nothing between us  _before_  we remembered the other timeline then—“

          “Then what?” Now it was my turn to challenge him. How was he going to finish that sentence without offending me? Especially when I was just itching for a reason to keep my distance from him?

          “Then…”

          That’s right. He couldn’t complete that thought without telling me that I wasn’t as smart as he thought, or some other belittling thing.

          Satisfied that this discussion was over, I pushed the covers off of me and stood up.

          “Y/N, where—where are you going?” Dean scrambled up after me.

          I grabbed some of the clothes he bought me yesterday and yanked open the door to the bedroom. “To take a shower.”

          “We aren’t done with this conversation.”

          I could hear his footsteps follow behind me as I navigated the unfamiliar house, hoping I could remember where the bathroom Jody showed me was. “ _I_  am done with this conversation.”

          Dean’s hand on my upper arm drew me to a stop. I vaguely noted that we were in front of the doorway to the living room where there were several sets of eyes watching us with unveiled curiosity, but most of my attention was on the infuriating man in front of me.

          “ _I’m_  not done with this conversation.”

          “Well that’s too bad.” I really needed to get away from him and remember exactly why is was a bad idea for us to be an  _us_  in this timeline. Because looking at his fucking perfect face and remembering all of the things that made him a fucking perfect man was definitely weakening my resolve. “Because I’m going to go take a shower.”

          “Fine.” His lip twitched like it always did when he was about to throw a wrench in my plans. “We can continue this discussion  _in_  the shower.”

          Um. No. That’s not what I wanted. That’s the  _opposite_  of what I wanted. I’d never seen Dean naked in this timeline, but I’d definitely seen him naked in the other one and… Well if just his face had the power to make me go weak, I didn’t want to imagine the way I would completely crumple when there were droplets of water sliding down his body, hugging every muscle of his toned—

          “That’s not necessary because we’re done with this conversation.”

          That dark smirk made its appearance and I knew I was toast. He only had  _that_ expression when he knew he had me right where he wanted me. “Scared I’ll be able to change your mind?”

          “What? No,” I scoffed, trying and completely failing to defend my honor. It was always hard to turn down a challenge, and a challenge from Dean? “Fine. We’ll continue this discussion in the shower, and you  _will_  keep your hands to yourself.”

          I turned around and continued my quest for the bathroom, ignoring the amused looks on everyone’s faces. Over my shoulder, I called to Dean, “And you’re  _not_  going to be able to change my mind!”

          “Yeah, we’ll see about that,” I heard him mumble. Just before he continued following me, he called towards our audience in a bright voice, “Good morning everyone!”

          Bobby’s bathroom was small, but I still made it a point to keep my back to Dean so I wouldn’t have to see any more of him than I needed to. My head knew that there was nothing between us, but my heart and body didn’t seem to have caught up. I managed to undress and get into the shower without seeing Dean at all.

          I heard him taking his clothes off, and  _that_ definitely made my heart race, but I counted it as a win that I managed to pull the shower curtain closed between us for a few seconds and somehow collect what few brain cells I had left.

          Then he pulled the curtain open and slid in behind me.

          And suddenly the shower seemed  _really_  small.

          “You gonna turn on the water?” Dean asked in a soft voice. He didn’t wait for my reply as he reached around me to complete the task, his chest brushing against my arm. Cold water rushed out of the tub faucet and pooled around my feet, but I was too frozen to dance out of the cold water, and not because of the temperature.

          Dean’s breaths tickled my ear, and he didn’t move back at all. “You’re so fucking gorgeous, Y/N.”

          Shit. This entire morning was a trainwreck. This was a horrible idea. I needed to get away from him. He needed to get out of this bathroom right this instant. I turned around to tell him just that, but my words didn’t have a chance to make it out of my mouth before he was kissing me.

          Electricity and water don’t mix. Bad idea. The sparks and lightning buzzing around the two of us just seemed like a terrible accident waiting to happen with the water at our feet. But  _God,_  Dean’s lips always had the power to make me forget about consequences. My fingers itched to touch him, and I couldn’t have held them back if I tried. As soon as I had his short hair tangled in my fingers, he pressed forward and the cool tile on my back contrasted with the now-warm water at my feet and the heat of Dean’s lips and body on mine.

          I could absolutely lose myself in this man. The rough morning stubble against my palms as my hands began to travel downward. The knot of muscles in his neck and the smooth slope of his shoulders. The way he thrust his hips against mine just as he bit my lower lip and ignited a fire inside of me. His rolling muscles and the dip in the middle of his back. Those soft growls that I wasn’t sure he was even aware he was making.

          Then my fingers brushed against the lower right of his back, expecting to find the raised skin of the scar he’d gotten during a hunt, but all I felt was smooth skin. It woke me up enough to realize that I was mixing my timelines again, but not enough for me to find the strength to push him away.

          I knew I had to.

          But I didn’t want to.

          Somehow though, I found enough strength to reach over and flip the switch. Water stopped flowing from the tub faucet, and a second later Dean and I were drenched in a spray of freezing cold water from the showerhead that had him jerking away. In the few seconds that it took for the warm water to work its way up the pipes, I was able to come back to enough of my senses.

          “I told you to keep your hands to yourself,” I muttered with my eyes closed. The temptation to pick back up where we left off was too high right now.

          “I did,” he replied, his hoarse voice nearly doing me in. But the smug tone it took was enough for me to pick up a few of the bricks that had fallen and begin to rebuild my walls. “I kept my  _hands_  away from you.”

          “You—” I thought back and realized he was right. He’d kept his hands on the tiled wall the entire time. At no point during that kiss did he use his hands on me. “You conniving bastard.”

          He chuckled darkly. “But you love me anyway.”

          Yes.

          No.

          Not here.

          But, yes.

          I  _really_  needed to regain control of this situation. And quickly.

          So I finally opened my eyes and pointedly kept my eyes above his neck. Pointing to the back of the tub, I said, “You are going to stand back there, make sure your gunshot wound doesn’t get infected or whatever might happen if it gets wet, and not touch me  _at all_. I’m going to wash my hair. And if you want to continue this conversation, then you’re going to have to do the talking because I’m  _done_.”

          “That’s not what that kiss said,” he replied, but at least he took a few steps back until he couldn’t go any further. It still wasn’t far enough away for my taste, but it would have to do.

          I turned my back on him and found the shampoo Jody told me to use yesterday.

          “Well, since you aren’t going to be the one talking, I guess that means that you’ll just have to listen.”

          “Don’t count on it,” I mumbled, determined to hold strong this time. Instead, I focused on working the shampoo in my hair into the perfect lather.

          Still though, Dean’s voice drew me in. I couldn’t help it.

          “I get that you want to stay here in this timeline. I do too—”

_That_  surprised me. I whirled around, staring at him in surprise. Dean was always Mr. Hero. If he was needed somewhere, he would go there. And that other timeline? Well, it was one huge mess. This world was just slightly messy. It was practically an oasis compared to that one. Here, there were no ancient gods fighting for control. Surely he knew that he was needed more over there?

          My sudden attention must have surprised Dean as well, because he shut up for a minute and raised an eyebrow at me. “What? I can’t like this cushy lifestyle better too? You’re right. This one is much better than the other one.”

          “Then what’s your deal, Dean? This one is better. Let’s just forget about the other one.”

          “No.” He stated it so confidently that I was taken aback. “I can’t. I  _can’t_  forget how I felt about you. How I still feel about you.”

          “You need to. I’m your assistant—“

          “Stop using that excuse!” I’m sure everyone in the living room had heard his raised voice. My wide eyes had him quickly backing down and speaking in a lower voice. “Forget about our jobs here. Forget about those stupid rules about workplace relationships. Think about  _us_.  _We_  have something, Y/N. You can’t deny that.”

          I couldn’t. I trusted Dean so deeply that I was willing to be smuggled away after he’d just gotten shot with minimal questions. That was even  _before_ I remembered the other timeline. But I still couldn’t give in. So I turned around and the shower was silent for a minute as I washed the shampoo out of my hair and formulated my argument.

          “I’m not saying there’s not something between us here,” I started slowly.  “I’m just saying that we  _can’t_  ignore our jobs. We can’t pick and choose what parts of life to consider when making decisions like this, Dean. I’m not going to be the assistant who sleeps with her boss—”

          “It’s not just sleeping together.”

          “But no one else will see it like that.”

          He was way too calm after regaining an entire lifetime of memories. Traumatic memories, to boot. He should be freaking out about that more than just fixating on our relationship.

          “Who cares what they think?”

          I turned around and stared at him in disbelief. This was a man who made his entire fortune on what other people thought about him. His company was his baby. He’d fostered the growth and image of it to be something that people could look up to. He didn’t want to lead the kind of company that people saw as corrupted big business.

_“You_  should. You’re constantly in the tabloids just for being one of the most eligible bachelors in America. Everything you do and say reflects not only on you but on your company. We’re  _staying_  in this timeline, Dean. You can’t let your  _don’t give a damn_  attitude from the other timeline ruin your company in this timeline.”

          “And I won’t. But I  _can’t_  let you go, Y/N.”

          There was… something. Something in his eyes, maybe? His body language? The way he said my name? I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something about him got the gears in my brain turning.

          I’d just told him that we can’t pick and choose parts of our lives to consider. Was that what he was doing? Ignoring all of the bad? Focusing on the good? In the other timeline, the only good parts were really me and Sam. We were all he had. It had been a world filled with trauma, death, and tears. But when it was just the three of us in the bunker…

          “Dean, you were a demon.” A muscle in his throat twitched, but other than that, he didn’t react. “You went to Hell. Purgatory. Your dad traded his life for yours. You’ve literally held Sam in your arms while he  _died_.”

          “What’s your point, Y/N?”

          “My point is that your life sucked. My life sucks. I  _killed_  my daughter. You killed innocent people too. We can’t ignore that—“

          “You just said that what happened over there can stay over there.”

          “I said that you don’t have to bring that stuff over here. But you can’t ignore it. You have to deal with it. If you don’t, then all of those memories are going to be giant, twisted skeletons in your closet. They’re going to ruin you over here. Face those memories Dean. Face the bad.”

          He set his jaw and narrowed his eyes at me in a challenge. “Like you are?”

          “I  _am_! I’m not ignoring the fact that Addy was my daughter over there. I’m not trying to pretend like I never killed her. I’m trying to deal with that. But I’m trying to do it like a healthy, mature adult. I’m not trying to push away the stuff that hurts and wrap myself around the only bright parts, like what we had. I know that if I want to keep moving forward in this timeline, then I have to deal with what I did over there.”

          I hadn’t finished my shower, but I was  _so_  done with this conversation. So I stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around my body, grabbed the dirty and clean clothes I’d brought in, and started for the door. With my hand on the knob, I turned around and looked back at where Dean was still standing at the back of the tub with the spray of the water hitting his shins.

          “Bad shit happened, Dean. Deal with it before you suffocate any sort of relationship we might have had by holding on too tight.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s some more yelling and arguing then Sam gets fed up and gets right down to the middle of it all

**~Dean’s POV~**

          “I heard this was where the party was!” The front door banged open and in walked Ash, mullet and all.

          Jo perked up from where she, Y/N, and Alex had been talking on the couch in the living room. “’Bout time you came around and showed that sorry excuse you call a face, you slacker.”

          “Jo, when you got the hair, you don’t need nothin’ else.” Ash flicked some of his long hair over his shoulder and hefted his bag. “Now where do I set up? Ellen made it sound like y’all desperately need my genius.”

          “Kev and Charlie are upstairs. Dean, why don’t you show him?” Jo threw a very pointed look my way. I shrugged off the wall and pointed at myself, confirming what she’d said. She just nodded, then jerked her head towards the stairs. Apparently she caught onto my act of pretending I wasn’t hovering around Y/N.

          I think I liked it better when Jo still threw a cold shoulder towards Y/N because of her crush on me. This new friendship didn’t bode well.

          Whatever.

          “C’mon Ash. I’ll show you ‘round.”

          As soon as I introduced Ash to Charlie and Kevin, they jumped right into the technical talk that bored me to death. I considered heading back downstairs and lurking around Y/N, but figured that probably wouldn’t get me anywhere. So I pulled up a chair and pretended to be engrossed in whatever the hell the three geniuses in the room were doing.

          What was so bad about focusing on the good things in life? Throw the bad stuff away and just let the good stay. That was a lesson my mom had taught me time and time again.

          Well, in this timeline anyway.

          And if mom was here right now, she would sure as hell tell me that what I had with Y/N was one of the best things I’d ever had. She’d be thrilled that I found a woman I was actually serious about. And, boy, was I serious about Y/N.

          “That’s how it’s done!” Ash yelled victoriously, pushing away from his mess of a laptop and raising his arms in the air.

          Kevin flinched away with a distasteful grimace on his face. “Dude. Deodorant.”

          “Amigo, you can either have me wearing pants, or me wearing deodorant. You can’t have both.” Good ol’ Ash. Never giving a shit about what people thought about him.

          Why couldn’t Y/N take a page from his book? Ash accepted himself the way he was. Why couldn’t she accept  _us_  as we were?

          “What’d you do?” I asked, anxious to get out of my thoughts for a minute.

          “Your friend here is a genius,” Charlie said to me. “And that’s coming from me, so that’s saying a lot.” I had such humble friends.

          “I dug deep into the files on the USB and found the IP addresses of every piece of code that was created. If someone created part of the code that was on this drive, I know where they were.”

          Charlie took over the explanation. “Then I made a tracking program. Any device that accesses that IP address will lead us to another piece of the puzzle.”

          “If any of these fugly bastards raises their heads, we’ll know.”

_Demon tracker_.  _Yellow-Eyes_.

          I quickly pushed that memory away. In this timeline, Ash didn’t need to track demons. He only tracked corrupt people. In this timeline, he didn’t die in a fire at the Roadhouse. None of that mattered.

          “We’ve got a hit already,” Kevin announced, pulling one of the laptops closer to him. “Over by New York. Looks like a Carson Carlisle just sent an email to a…”

          He trailed off and Charlie tapped at her keyboard for a minute before picking up the sentence. “Carson sent an email to Howard Hutton.”

          “Carson Carlisle?” Y/N’s voice behind me was like a livewire touched my spinal cord. How had I not heard or felt her come in?

          “Yeah,” Charlie looked up at her. “You know him?”

          Y/N laughed humorously and avoided my eyes. “You might say that. I dated him for about a year. If you need me to call him or anything, I can do that. We ended on good terms. Still friends.”

          Y/N dated that Carlisle character? He was in the elite tiers of the Manhattan social life. I’d only met him a few times, but he seemed like a total douche. “You  _dated_  that idiot?”

          She just sent me a flat look before turning her attention back toward the resident geniuses in the room. “I can’t imagine Carson being tied up in this, but I mean, it’s not completely out of character.”

          “Who’re you?” Ash asked, eyeing Y/N.

          “Oh, that’s Y/N,” Charlie introduced with a mischievous grin. “She’s Dean’s personal assistant and they like to argue in the shower.”

          “Oh my God, Charlie,” I groaned.  _That_  was not how I liked introducing Y/N to people.

          “Anyway, back to Carson,” Y/N pointedly redirected the conversation. “According to Jo, you’re kind of a genius, Ash. Do you think it would help if I got in touch with him? Poked around a little?”

          I didn’t even give Ash a chance to respond before I exclaimed, “Absolutely not!”

          “And why not?”

          She’d been looking for any reason to be mad at me. I knew that much. And I’d been trying hard not to give her one. But this was something that I couldn’t back down on. “Because you’re not a part of this. I’m not dragging you into this.”

          “You  _literally_  kidnapped me and dragged me into this. Besides, you know I can handle myself.”

          Her meaningful look reminded me of all the times she’d saved my ass in the other timeline. So yeah, I knew that Y/N from the other timeline could handle herself. But the Y/N here? She kept insisting that the two timelines should be kept separate, yet here she goes, throwing herself into both just to get what she wants.

          “Can I talk to you for a minute? Alone?” I snapped through clenched teeth.

          Apparently she wasn’t expecting my anger, because she let me pull her down the hallway and to our room without a fight. Sam was on the bed with his laptop, but I decided that he could hear this argument.

          “What the hell, Dean? I just want to help!”

          “Well, you can’t handle it,” I said bluntly, knowing that that would absolutely infuriate her.

          She crossed her arms and opened her mouth a few times before any sound came out. “Excuse me?”

          “You can’t have it both ways, Y/N. Here, you’re an assistant. A  _good_ assistant. Best I’ve had. But you can’t handle espionage. You haven’t been trained to fight over here.”

          “But you  _know_  I can fight. I’ve saved your ass so many times—”

          “Yeah. In the other timeline. And you’ve been very insistent that we keep the two completely separate. So what is it, Y/N? Because you can’t have it both ways. You can’t just keep playing around with this whenever it suits you.”

          “You’re twisting my words around, Dean!”

          Coming from the person who kept twisting the circumstances around to work to her advantage, I supposed that was a compliment. “I’m telling you  _exactly_  what you told me earlier.”

          “No, you’re not!”

          “Guys,” Sam broke in, almost bored. It was as if this argument wasn’t even bothering him. “Keep it down or go to the panic room. Thin walls.”

          Fire flickered in Y/N’s eyes, but she continued in a low whisper. “You know what, Dean? I’m sick of these arguments. I’m so fucking done with you not listening to me—”

          “Maybe if you didn’t just think about yourself—”

          “I quit.”  _That_  shut me up. She couldn’t be talking about— “I’m not giving you the courtesy of a resignation letter or two weeks’ notice. I’m no longer your assistant. You’re no longer my boss. You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”

          “Don’t do this—”

          “Everyone’s been saying that Ash is the genius, so I’m going to go out there and I’m going to help. If he thinks that we can use my friendship with Carson, then I’m going to damn well use my friendship with Carson and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

          She slammed the door on her way out, leaving me completely dumbfounded. What the hell just happened?

          “Well,” Sam said shortly. He definitely wasn’t bored now. “Didn’t see that one coming.”

          A few steps backwards was all it took for my legs to hit the foot of the bed and I fell down, sitting in silence and staring at the door.

          After a few minutes of my broodiness, Sam sighed heavily, set his laptop aside, and scooted up to sit next to me. “Alright, man. You and Y/N have got to figure this thing out. Crowley’s going to come asking around soon and the three of us have to be united. You can’t be fighting like this. What did you two talk about this morning?”

          The reminder of our conversation in the shower made me groan and hide my face in my hands. She’d kissed me back like I was oxygen and she couldn’t get enough. In this timeline, I’d            _never_  been kissed that like by anyone. I knew that she could feel the connection between us.

          But she shut me down so quickly I nearly got whiplash.

          “She just kept saying that we’re different people over here and we shouldn’t bring things from the other timeline into this one. Then she turns around and tries to use her skills from the other timeline to get on the team. You can’t tell me that she’s not twisting everything around for her own benefit.”

          Sam was quiet for entirely too long. I looked over at him with narrowed eyes.

          “Maybe she is. But you are too.”

          I groaned. “C’mon, dude. Not you too.”

          “Look, I’m trying to deal with all this shit too, man. But I don’t have the added confusion of having a relationship like you and Y/N to deal with. As far as I’m concerned, I have it easy. Sure, I did some really bad things over there and I’m trying to come to terms with those, but in both timelines, you’re my brother. I’d do anything for you. That much hasn’t changed. And in this timeline, I only met Y/N a few days ago, so I don’t have to figure out what the hell we are between the two timelines.”

          “And this is supposed to help me  _how_?”

          “Help you?” Sam shook his head with a humorless chuckle. “We’re all in the same boat. The only way we can help each other is if we actually talk instead of arguing about the holes that have been blown in the boat.”

          How poetic.

          And very unhelpful.

          “Yeah, tell that to Y/N. She’s the one who stormed outta here.”

          Something about my words made Sam tilt his head and get that look that warned me that he was up to something.

          “Sam…”

          “Gimme a second, Dean.” And without further ado, Sam stood and left the room. I waited about five minutes before giving up and leaving the room myself. This wasn’t a big house. If Sammy wanted to talk things out, he would be able to find me.

          It was half an hour before Sam reappeared and told me to go to the panic room. I made some quip about a surprise party, but reluctantly followed his directions. Not five minutes later, Sam, Y/N, and Bobby came down the stairs. Y/N hesitated when she saw I was already there, but Sam gave her a little push and said, “Just go in, already.”

          Once the three of us were in the panic room, Sam nodded to Bobby who stayed on the outside and closed the door. I was confused up until I heard the lock engage.

          From the outside.

          Sam had just locked us in.

          “Sam, what the hell?”

          “You two, sit down over there.” Sam pointed to the far wall. I raised my eyebrow at him, but complied, sitting down on the floor. Y/N heard the command in his voice and did the same, keeping a good two feet between us. “Look, this thing that happened to us? It’s huge. We can’t just brush it off. So we are going to stay in this room until we work things out. All three of us have to be on the same page before I call Bobby and tell him to unlock that door.”

          “Fuck you, Sam,” Y/N spat, taking me completely by surprise. In this timeline, she rarely cursed. And in the other one, she’d never once spoken to Sam with that much anger. “I didn’t even want you two to take the damn drug. I shouldn’t be here. I was doing just fine before you two assholes butted in—”

          “We  _butted_  in? Sweetheart, you woke Sam up. You asked for this.”

          “Then I changed my mind. Besides, I never gave  _you_  the option. You just took it.”

          “Like how you butted your way into the team? You just can’t wait to get in touch with Carson, can you? Hoping for a little backslide into Ex-Land, huh?”

          “Wow, Dean. Way to sound like a bitchy, jealous, teenage ball of hormones.”

          “GUYS!” Sam yelled, silencing us, but not making us stop glaring at each other. When he saw that he at least had enough of our attention that we would listen, he took a deep breath.

          “I’m not calling Bobby until we’ve worked this out. I don’t care how long it takes, or how uncomfortable we get. We are going to talk things out. We are going to tell the truth. The WHOLE truth. Even the things that we never said in the other timeline. You two are going to get over yourselves and ‘fess up about whatever the hell is making you both so crazy about whether you have a relationship here or not so that we can move onto how to handle Crowley.”

          At that last sentence, Y/N’s eyes went wide with fear and she finally looked away from me.

          What was that about? What hadn’t she told me? Something about our relationship in the other timeline  _really_  scared her. I was a little scared at just how intensely I loved her other there, but her fear stemmed from somewhere else. I could see it in her eyes.

          “What is it, Y/N?” I asked softly. The overwhelming angry tension in the room gave way to a nervous kind of tension when she refused to look at either me or Sam. “C’mon, baby. You can tell me. I know you still trust me.”

          She didn’t say anything for a long minute, and both Sam and I gave her that space to think. Telling the truth was hard. And whatever she had to tell me was obviously much more difficult than just a normal confession.

          After a minute or two she shook her head and started to stand. “No. I can’t do this. Sam, call Bobby—”

          “Sit back down,” Sam commanded, but his voice was softer this time. Still though, Y/N couldn’t fight the firm tone and she reluctantly sank back down next to me. “Dean, maybe you should go first.”

          Oh shit. With the spotlight on me, it was suddenly really frightening to just lay it all out there. I’d rather face a dozen demons with only a Taser. But if telling the whole truth could smooth things over between me and Y/N and get  _her_  to open up then…

          “That night at the bar, before we went to meet with Crowley, I was talking to Sam about an idea I had. It was a pretty stupid idea, considering everything, but once I had the thought, it just wouldn’t leave me alone.” I turned my whole body to face her and gently coaxed her face towards mine with a soft touch on her cheek. It wasn’t until she locked her eyes on mine that I continued. “Y/N, I was going to ask you to marry me.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reader reacts to Dean’s bombshell from the end of last chapter

**~Reader’s POV~**

_I was going to ask you to marry me._

          I don’t know if Dean could see the way his words completely knocked the air out of me, but he kept nervously talking and my brain was scrambling to keep up with his words while it processed that confession.

          Marriage?

          “I know, it’s crazy. Especially over there. I mean, we’re both technically legally dead. We’re both hunters. It’s not like we would be married long before one of us died, probably. Stupid idea. But I just… every time I saw you, I knew that I wanted something  _more_. I just—”

          He cut himself off and took a deep breath which gave me a second to prepare myself, but I had no idea how to prepare myself at all. He had completely thrown me off balance with his declaration. And when his eyes opened again and bore into my very soul, I saw a conviction there that scared me.

          “Y/N, I want to marry you.” The change from past tense to present tense wasn’t lost on me. “I get that things are different now. And I’m not saying that I want to run out and elope right this second. We’ve got a shit storm of stuff to work through, and I’m okay with that. We can work through it. But  _please_  don’t keep pushing me away. It’s not going to work. I love you too much to let you go.”

_I love you_. Those three words were the ones that completely demolished the defenses I’d so carefully built up. I knew how Dean felt about me in the other timeline. It was evident in every single thing he did for me. But he’d never said the words aloud.

          If he had, I probably would have run like a spooked deer.

          “Dean, you shouldn’t,” I whispered. “You shouldn’t love me. I just—fuck.”

          This was so hard. There was a reason there was the saying about celebrating with other people and suffering alone. Letting someone in to see the mess of your soul was bone-crunchingly terrifying. Ruining the image they had of you in their head was the absolute worst. But Sam wasn’t letting us out until we told the truth, and I found that I didn’t have the strength to run away anymore.

          “Talk to me, baby.”

          Oh, God, when he called me baby it just melted me. Dean Winchester calling you  _sweetheart_  was one thing, but he reserved  _baby_  for the things he loved the most. It was an exclusive club of two.

          His precious car.

          And me.

          “I just can’t—I don’t think that—You can’t…” Now it was my turn to take a deep breath and figure out how the hell to put into words that deep, dark emotion that was rooted to every blood vessel and nerve ending in my body. “I don’t think there’s ever been a point in my life that I’ve been deserving of your love.”

          Dean opened his mouth to protest, but Sam cut him off. “Dean, let her get it out.”

          I kept going as if that never happened, but I was grateful to Sam. This was hard enough without interruptions. “Dean, I’m not the person you thought I was over there. I told you that after I killed Addy, I cleaned up and got better. That was a lie. I  _did_  clean up. But I didn’t get better. I started hunting because I wanted to die. I wanted to get in so far over my head that there was no escape and I thought I could just hunt until something killed me.

          “Then I met you and, God, you were so infuriating. You were  _such_  an asshole. But that was the first time I felt anything since she died. You hated me, and it made me feel a little better. I deserved your hate. Then we started to tolerate each other and you guys invited me to come along on hunts with you and I—I don’t know. I didn’t want to seem damaged. I wanted to feel normal again. I wanted you to think that I was this badass woman. So I pretended to be her. And I got so good at pretending that somewhere along the line, I started to believe it too. But the truth is that I’m still the person who got so high and killed my own daughter.”

          I stared down at my hands in my lap and prepared the half-truth I was about to say. “I was just putting on an act the entire time I was with you guys. I wasn’t real with you.”

          The only sound in the room was the soft whooshing of the giant fan overhead. Finally, someone broke the silence, but it wasn’t the brother I was expecting to talk.

          “I’m calling bullshit,” Sam said.

          Dean and I both threw him startled looks, and he sat down on the ground in front of us so we were level.

          “Y/N, you might have felt like you were acting, but you weren’t. I  _know_  that you were my friend. There is not a doubt in my mind that you liked me, and that we had fun pranking Dean, and you and I bonded over trying to get Dean to eat healthier, and that you didn’t actually help me with research, but you still stayed out and pretended so that I wouldn’t be alone. That’s all stuff that friends do for their friends.”

          “Sam, I—”

          But he bulldozed right over me. He was in a bossy mood today which bugged me, but something in the corner of my mind whispered that maybe we needed him to take charge and get us to face our shit.

          “You can think of it as acting all you want, but there comes point when you stop acting because that  _is_  who you are now. Isn’t that how we get past things? We act like we’re okay and eventually we are?” Sam reached over and took my hand. I was too overwhelmed with everything to protest. “Look, Y/N. I loved you over there—as a friend, Dean, don’t hit me—and I know that you did too. I’ve only known you a few days here, but even when you were yelling at me about Dean bleeding out on your couch, I knew that we had potential. I’m a good judge of character.”

          “We act like we’re okay and eventually we are,” I repeated in a mumble. “ _That_  belongs in a fortune cookie somewhere.”

          Did that happen? I tried so hard to be normal for the Winchesters that eventually I not only started believing it, but I actually became normal? Whole?

          I lifted my distressed eyes to Sam’s, and the small, supportive smile he replied with broke down those last few bricks in my walls. I slid my hand out of his, only to close the distance between us and wrap my arms around his shoulders. His strong arms came around my back, and he hugged me tightly to his body. My face was buried in his neck, and I could feel him and Dean doing that silent Winchester communication over my shoulder, but I didn’t mind it like I had last night with Crowley.

          “You know,” Sam whispered in my ear, “If I’m so certain that you’re a good person and we’re only friends, think about how sure Dean is.”

          Extracting my face from his neck, I kissed Sam on the cheek and pressed my forehead to his. “Thank you, Sam.”

          I didn’t believe him. Not all the way, at least. But I felt like maybe I’d just taken the first step towards reconciling how I viewed myself to the person I’d actually become between the two timelines. Sam had handed me the tools I needed.

          But facing Dean right now seemed like climbing Mount Everest. I’d been a bitch to him today. We both said hurtful things.

_But he still wants to marry you_ , a timid voice whispered in my head. And that was enough for me to climb off of Sam’s lap and sit back against the wall by Dean.

          “Hey, Y/N?” Dean said softly, getting me to twist my head around to him. He offered a half smile. “We’ve both got a lot of shit to work through. But I still love you too.”

          There it was again.  _I Love You_.

          I scooted over until I was right next to him and my arms were wrapped around his waist. That didn’t seem to be enough for him because next thing I knew, his hands were gripping my hips and he’d lifted me onto his lap so we were chest to chest. The thin ice we’d been skating on all day suddenly felt stronger underfoot when he wrapped his arms around me and held me so close that I could feel his heartbeats.

          Behind me, I heard Sam let out a deep breath that matched the way all of my tension seemed to seep out of every cell in my body. It had been exhausting to put up my guard for so long. To push Dean away when all I wanted was to pull him closer, just like this. But I had been wrong, and admitting that let my lungs stop constricting so much.

          Admitting how I felt about Dean was different than accepting it. Just like knowing about the other timeline was different than experiencing it. I wasn’t completely convinced that I was wrong to try and stop Sam and Dean from taking the drug. But I couldn’t keep pretending that I had the high ground. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I wasn’t. But now that they knew, I had to admit that it wasn’t all bad. Having these shared memories that didn’t belong in this timeline wasn’t all bad.

          So maybe admitting my feelings for Dean wouldn’t be all bad either.

          “I love you too, Dean,” I mumbled into his shoulder, finally saying the words that I’d kept in for so long. He tightened his hold on me for a moment before easing his face out of my neck and curling his fingers into the hair at the base of my neck, holding me in place so I couldn’t escape his eyes.

          Not that I wanted to.

          “We’re good, right? No more pushing me away?”

          As scary as it was, I shook my head. “Only when it’s too hot in the summer and the AC is broken.”

          He cracked a smile at the memory of the time he and I went on a hunt without Sam. We’d been excited to have a few days where we didn’t have to sneak around. Of course that would be the one hotel room that didn’t have AC. I’d ended up pushing Dean off the bed in the middle of the night because he couldn’t stay on his side and it was way too hot to share body heat.

          “Deal,” he said, sealing the deal with that cliché kiss.

          It took Sam a few times clearing his throat to get us to break the kiss. “We’ve still got some other things to talk about.”

          Right.

          Crowley.

          Timelines.

          I slid off of Dean’s lap, but he kept me firmly anchored to his side with an arm around my shoulder. He sure was taking this  _not letting me go_ thing seriously.

          “What’s there to talk about? We’re staying here. End of discussion.”

          “I think we need to look a little deeper,” Sam said carefully, knowing that Dean and I would not like that. “Not necessarily to change your minds, but so that we have better arguments when Crowley calls than  _end of discussion_.”

          It made sense, but I couldn’t let the way he said ‘change  _your_  minds’ go.

          “Sam… Don’t  _you_  think we should stay here?”

          He pursed his lips and clasped his hands in front of him. “I want to say yes. Staying here would be easier. But the easiest way isn’t always the best way.”

          “Sam.” Dean’s tone told me that he thought Sam was out of his mind. “Mom and dad are  _alive_  over here. What more is there to think about?”

          “How about the Titans, for one?”

          And that’s what I was scared of. That the Winchesters would remember what we were fighting in the other timeline and want to go back and save the day.

          It turns out that the Titans from Greek mythology decided that now was a good time to come out of hiding and battle each other for, how did they put it? Something about gaining control of the heavens over the Earth, the air in the sea breeze, and the currents moving the ocean water.

          Whatever. Family drama. Let them sort it out.

          “It’s not  _actually_ the Titans,” I tried to argue, but I knew that Sam wouldn’t hear of it.

          “It’s their kids. Practically the same thing. Look, apparently you told Dean that you can’t pick and choose what you consider when making decisions, right? Well, you can’t forget this.”

          “I’m not for—” Dammit. That was exactly what I was doing. “Sam, what can we possibly do over there? It’s the goddamn Titans. You handled Lucifer. You handled the Darkness. Yeah. But that was only one deity at a time, really. And for Amara, you needed Chuck’s help. These… these kids of the Titans… There’re over a dozen and they’re all fighting each other for the world in that timeline. It’s like their parents died and left them a will, but all of them want everything. It’s just family drama.”

          Sam sat forward with his elbows on his thighs and eyes directed at me. “So you want to just give up?”

          “I want to be happy! Don’t we deserve that? After all we’ve been through? After all  _you’ve_  been through, don’t you deserve family dinners with your  _whole_  family? Don’t you like seeing Dean so relaxed and carefree? So successful? And you get to stay in one place. You have a house, right? You’re a professor. You’re shaping the minds of young adults who are just so excited to change the world.”

          “We can change the world over there, too,” he pointed out.

          This time Dean piped up. “Mom and dad are alive here. They can help us. We have Bobby and Ash and Charlie and Kevin—”

          “And they can handle this timeline,” Sam cut him off. “Guys, this timeline has people who can save the world. And they’re all upstairs. But the other timeline? It’s just Jody, Donna, and Cas waiting for us.”

          “ _This_  is why I didn’t want you to take the drug,” I said in a flat voice.

          “Because you wanted to make the decision for all three of us?” Dean asked quietly. “You didn’t want us to have any say in our lives?”

          I know I  _just_  promised not to push him away, but the anger and annoyance I’d been feeling towards him for so long came right back with his words.  _He_  said that he wanted to stay here too. What was the big deal?

          “Because… Because I wanted to be the one to protect you two for a change. You’ve always looked after me, even when I was a bitch to you. But you guys are so skilled at everything that you don’t need me to look after you. I wanted to be the hero for once.”

          I refused to look at either of them. Admitting weakness was horrible, but people’s reactions? Even worse. I just kept my eyes on my knees and figured that it was a good sign that Dean hadn’t hugged me closer in sympathy or pushed me away in disgust at my admission.

          “Y/N, you have to know that we aren’t heroes—“

          “Now it’s my turn to call bullshit, Sam. You two  _are_  heroes. You’re the best damn heroes that any timeline could ever ask for. Wanna know why? Because you’re the freaking Winchesters. You can kill anything. You got God and his sister to talk things out. You’ve saved so many people and you’re sacrificed yourselves so many times. And I know that if you went back to the other timeline, you would find some way to kick those Titan’s asses. So yeah, you guys are heroes whether you feel like it or not. And that’s what I didn’t want.”

          “You… didn’t want us to feel like heroes?” Sam asked slowly.

          Yeah, yeah. I didn’t want them to feel powerful and confident and that probably made me a horrible friend. But I. Just. Couldn’t. Take. It.

          “I don’t want you guys to go all hero and jump right into that other timeline.”

          “Because you won’t come with us,” Dean finished my thought, obviously remembering my argument from… yesterday? Was it really less than twenty-four hours that I’d had that discussion with them, begging to not take the drug?

          “Yeah,” I mumbled, realizing that I had been wrong. This wasn’t me being a hero. This wasn’t me shielding them from these memories like a good friend. This was me being selfish.

          I wanted Addy  _and_  the Winchesters. I wanted it all.

          Didn’t I deserve that?

          “Well, I don’t know if we’ll have a choice,” Dean said. Sam and I both turned to look at him. “After I woke up, Crowley said something about how there’s something special about you. He’d met with me dozens of times and never got his memory back. But when he met you in the office, it was like you opened the floodgates.”

          “So maybe Y/N is the only way back?” Sam thought out loud, not seeming to like the way the words fit on his tongue any more than I did.

          Were they saying that I held their futures in my hand? I had the power to veto their decisions? If they made the final decision to go back, did that mean that I could force them to stay here with me?

          But what kind of person would that make me?

          “It’s just a thought. Maybe Crowley knows more,” Dean rushed to say as if he sensed where my thoughts went.

          “Then I guess we talk to Crowley,” I forced out around the cobwebs in my throat.

          “I hate that,” Dean growled, but Sam just nodded. A few minutes later, Sam agreed that we were all good and he called Bobby to get us out of the panic room. I walked upstairs in a daze, wondering if they were right.

          Was I special? Could I control if they stayed or went back to the other timeline?

          And if I could, would I?


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You and Dean sneak away for some of that alone time he’s been wanting, and Crowley makes another reappearance

**~~Dean’s POV~~**

          “Well, if you and Alex want to leave everyone, why do I have to go too? I can still sleep on the couch.” Claire was standing in front of Jody with her arms crossed. Jody had adopted the  _I’m your mother and you will do as I say_  look, but I’d always felt oddly protective of the rebellious blonde teenager, so I strode over.

          “What’s going on?”

          Claire moved her glare from Jody to me. “Since Ash is here, there’s nowhere for him to sleep. And since Jody has a house in town, she decided that the three of us are going to go home tonight. But that just means that we’re going to miss out on all the good stuff! Miss all the action!”

          Jody has a house in town. Empty. No one staying there right now. I was speaking before I even finished crafting my argument. “Y/N and I can go. Ash can bunk with Sam. You three can stay here.”

          Claire’s look told me that I wasn’t fooling anyone with my altruistic motives for sleeping in town, but she wasn’t about to argue with something that could keep her at Bobby’s. “Good. We’re all set.”

          “Young lady!” Jody called weakly after Claire when she started walking away. Then she turned her motherly look on me and managed to drag my name out into two syllables. “Dean.”

          “Jody.”

          “I’m not about to let you keep dictating what Y/N does or doesn’t do. She may be your assistant, but she’s not your puppet.”

_She’s my future wife_. “Ask her if she wants to stay with me at your house. I guarantee that she will say yes.”

          Still, Jody didn’t let up on her look. But I didn’t back down either. The air was finally clear between Y/N and me, and I couldn’t wait to get her alone. And after the few minutes in the shower before she shut me down, I knew that she was on edge too.

          After a minute or two, Jody gave in and went in search of Y/N. I disappeared into the room we were sharing and started packing. As soon as we could slip out, I wanted to be gone. Sure, I could help with more research, but there wasn’t really a need when there were so many people who were smarter than I was. In this team, I was the point man. As soon as they found something I could act on, someone I could punch, I would be right there.

          But until then, I would be with Y/N between the sheets of Jody’s guest room.

          If we made it that far.

          After dinner, I tried to grab Y/N and sneak out, but Ash called her into the research room and I knew that I lost her until Ash decided that she’d helped enough. With all of the personal crap she had to wade through between the two timelines, I knew that she needed to feel needed. She needed to feel useful.

          But it sure didn’t make the wait any easier.

          Half of the house was asleep by the time Y/N finally found me in the kitchen.

          “Hey, Dean. You ready to go sleep in town?”

          I was on my feet in an instant. “Babe, if you think we’re going to be doing much sleeping, then you and I are obviously not on the same page.”

* * *

          “Dean,” Y/N’s scratchy voice punctured my dreams and her hand on my shoulder shook me into consciousness. “Dean, there’s someone at the door.”

          “I don’ care,” I slurred, rolling over and burying my face in her neck. We’d been up much later than normal last night and I was thoroughly exhausted. I definitely needed a few more hours of sleep next to her before I could deal with any real-world problems.

          But then someone knocked, or rather pounded, on the door and I heard it that time. Along with that annoying British accent that I would prefer to not hear first thing in the morning. “Dean! Y/N! I know you’re in there! If you two think I don’t have cameras set up to watch my dear friend Bobby’s house then you’re even more moronic than I thought.”

          “He’s not gonna go away,” she groaned, pulling a pillow over her head.

          Well, he really needed to. I blindly groped for my phone on the bed side table and squinted at the screen long enough to pull up his contact info and press call. He answered halfway through the first ring. “Squirrel, I expected better from—”

          “Go ‘way Crowley,” I snapped before ending the call and throwing the phone across the room.

          Y/N chuckled beside me, lazily moving until her arm was wrapped around my waist. Carefully, I eased my face away from her neck and opened my eyes just to see her smiling softly at me.

          “What?”

          “Nothing,” she replied. “I just forgot how grumpy you are in the mornings.”

          Though she said it fondly, I still felt slightly offended. “Hey now, I’m—”

          But she cut me off with a kiss before I could defend my morning honor anymore. I had a feeling that she meant the kiss to be brief, but it wasn’t two seconds later that her arm was wrapped around my back and every inch of her beautifully nude body was pressed firmly against me. I gave myself completely over to her, rolling onto my back and letting her take control.

          “I didn’t mean it as an insult,” she said a few minutes later, trying to catch her breath. “I happen to love how grumpy you are.”

          “Mmm.” My hands were gently rubbing at the muscles in her back and I couldn’t help but be completely entranced by her breathtaking face hovering above mine. Except for being woken by Crowley and assuming that he was impatiently waiting outside still, this was exactly how I pictured every morning for the rest of my life. It was my idea of a perfect heaven. “I’m gonna marry you, Y/N.”

          Her eyes widened and I immediately started backtracking. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I know we promised to leave anything heavy back at Bobby’s and—”

          Once again, she cut me off with a kiss. “Dean, it’s… it’s okay. I need to get over myself and this stupid self-loathing and the only way that’s going to happen is if you don’t hold back.”

          Don’t hold back, huh?

          She must have seen all sorts of ideas flicker through my eyes because she rolled off of me and sat up. “But, like, don’t push  _too_ hard. It’s still going to be hard to figure out how I feel because in  _this_ timeline I’ve always felt fine. But in that one I never did. So I don’t know if I need to find a happy medium or lean all the way into the Y/N in this timeline, because let’s face it, happy Y/N is better, but that also feels like I’m cheating and—“

          Since she was the one blabbering this time, it was my turn to shut her up with a kiss. Against her lips, I mumbled, “Heavy things at Bobby’s, remember?”

          “Speaking of, we should probably get back.”

          And, as if he sensed the perfect timing, Crowley started banging on the door again. I rolled my eyes. “Or deal with Crowley.”

          “Can’t we just kill him? He’s human here. Jody’s a sheriff. I’m sure she has a few guns laying around here somewhere.”

          Oh, God, I loved her so much. “That’s my girl.”

          Crowley’s knocking and yelling got more insistent, so Y/N and I finally gave in and scrounged up some clean clothes before yanking the door open to shut him up. Surely there were a few neighbors who had already called the police about a noise complaint. Maybe we would get lucky and Crowley would get arrested, then the police would do some digging and find all of the unsavory things in his past and he would be put away for life.

          That would definitely solve a few of our problems.

          “What do you want, Crowley?” Y/N snapped.

          “You, my dear,” he said with fake seduction dripping off his words.

          Y/N just crossed her arms and leveled a glare at him. “Too bad. I’m already spoken for. What do you  _really_  want?”

          “You know, you two are being rather rude. Why don’t you invite me in and we can have a little chat?”

          “Perhaps over some tea?” Y/N added sarcastically. “Not my house. I don’t know where Jody keeps her tea, and I don’t trust you. You’ll stay right there on the doorstep.”

          “Great plan. This way the whole world can see us, chatting about monsters and different timelines. And, oh, that’s right, we have Dean Winchester here who just stole a rather important piece of technology from one very paranoid government agency. I bet they’re just dying to find you and shut you up for good.”

          “We were just fine when we went to the mall,” I pointed out.

          Crowley gave me his signature,  _You really must be stupid_  look. “ _I_ found you, dimwit.”

          Dammit.

          I pushed the front door open further and motioned for him to come in. “But don’t touch anything.”

          “I’m not a child,” Crowley said with a touch of insolence.

          “Right. A child wouldn’t whine as much as you do,” I mumbled as I took a seat on the couch. Y/N took the recliner, leaving Crowley to sit on the other end of the couch, in between the two of us.

          “Well, let’s just get right down to brass tacks, shall we? I’ve done some research and—”

          “We’re not going back,” I interrupted. I  _really_  didn’t want to listen to him go on and on when it didn’t even matter. “You’re wasting your time.”

          Y/N sat forward. “Dean, we might as well hear him out. Sam will never let us hear the end of it if we don’t get more information first.”

          What the hell? She was the one who was so insistent on keeping me and Sam in the dark, and now she wanted to listen to even more of Crowley’s bullshit? “What does it matter?”

          “He’s not going to change our minds, but I’d still feel better knowing all the facts. You know, so we’re not picking and choosing anymore.”

          Sure, her argument made sense. She was repeating the same argument we’d had the entire day before. But there was something behind her words that I would have to question later when Crowley wasn’t around. “Fine. Crowley, continue.”

          “Most of what I found was utter bullshit. All fiction. Science-Fiction. Hogwash—”

          “We get it. Move on.”

          “You’re impatient today, aren’t you?”

          “He’s grumpy in the mornings,” Y/N said, catching my eye and trying to lighten the mood slightly, but I wasn’t having it. If it hadn’t been for Crowley, she and I would still be in bed right now. She seemed to sense my mood wasn’t going to budge because she turned her attention back to Crowley. “But he’s right. Get a move on.”

          “Geez, you two used to be more fun. Anyway. My research found a few promising leads. First off: angels.”

          “We know about angels, Crowley.” I was ready to deck him then kick him to the street.

          “But have you considered that one of them is responsible for this? Like that time you told me about when that angel sent you to the future? Something similar could have happened here.”

          “Okay, fine. Angels. We’ll run that idea past Sam. What’s next?”

          “There’s the obvious witches, but I don’t believe I’ve pissed off any witches lately besides mother. So unless you three idiots have done something…”

          “Angels. Witches. Got it.”

          “It’s possible that one of the Titans did this to us. We don’t know the full extent of their powers.”

          “Oh my God, this is ridiculous.” Y/N groaned. “The supernatural isn’t real over here. Anything you might have been able to find probably isn’t going to be helpful. It’s all going to be fiction. The only reason research helps in the other timeline is because there are first-hand accounts. What if the thing that messed with us over there doesn’t even exist in anyone’s minds over here? We would have no idea what it is unless one of us has researched it over there. So we don’t know how to get back there, even if we wanted to.”

          She had a point. But she was also all over the map today. She wanted to hear what Crowley came up with, but then she said that none of it would matter. What was going on in her head?

          “What about a Djinn?” I asked. If talking about this would help Crowley leave faster, then I could contribute. After all, I  _did_  have an entire lifetime of monster knowledge that was fresh in my mind. “I have first-hand knowledge of them. They mess with reality.”

          “But not timelines,” Crowley pointed out.

          Reality, timelines… they were practically the same thing. “What’s the difference?”

          “Different timelines happen on the same plane of reality. Something changes, and suddenly the future that was going to happen doesn’t happen anymore. There is only one timeline in each reality. But there are more than one reality and they all happen at the same time.” Crowley explained with a surprising amount of patience. “Really, Squirrel, I expected better of you.”

          “Why are you so insistent that this is a different timeline?” Y/N asked with narrowed eyes. “This could just be a different reality. Nothing to do with timelines at all.”

          “If it was, then how would the four of us be in the exact same alternate reality? Djinn don’t work that way.”

          It was way too early to deal with Crowley being right.

          But Y/N was more awake and argumentative than I was. “Alright. Not a Djinn. Something else could have send all four of us to the same alternate reality.”

          “I doubt it. Something about the memories and the way this world works with the other one just doesn’t make me think of differing realities.”

          And of course Crowley had the last word on the matter based entirely on his intuition. This was going nowhere. “What else did you find, then? Tell us so you can leave us alone.”

          “Well, I found a little something about time wrai— Leave you alone? Squirrel, you really think I’m going to leave you alone? I am  _going_  to get back to the other timeline and Y/N seems to be the key.”

          “I’m  _never_  going to help you, Crowley.”

          “Oh, really?” He turned a calculating gaze on Y/N and I was instantly on edge. That was the look of a man who had an ace up his sleeve. “What’s keeping you here, huh? During our little chat a few days ago, you kept mentioning how you had the Winchesters and how you had Addy here. Your dear, sweet, precious niece. Did you know that she had a piano recital yesterday? Played a riveting rendition of Fur Elise. She’s got quite the natural talent for those ivory keys.”

          Y/N leaned forward with a death glare on her face and it surprised me that Crowley didn’t seem the least bit concerned. “I swear to God, Crowley, if you so much as look at her—”

          “I’ve got my people watching her. You either do as I say, or I’ll give them the orders to take—” He never got to finish that threat because Y/N punched him so hard that it was impossible to mistake the sound of his nose breaking. Without giving him time to recover, her hands were wrapped around his neck, pushing him back into the couch. He struggled against her hold, but she wasn’t budging, and I wasn’t about to get in the middle of that.

          “You listen to me, you asswipe. If you or any of your people hurt  _anyone_  I care about in  _any_  way, I will torture you nice and slow just because you’re human here, and I can. I will make sure that your death is not quick or easy. I’m going to make you regret ever meeting me.” She let him go and took a step back, watching him sputter and try to get air back into his lungs. “I suggest you get it through that thick head of yours that you don’t get to order me around. And I will  _never_  help you.”

          Without waiting for either of us to react, Y/N stormed out of the house.

          “What is it with you people and punching me?” Crowley squeaked, gently prodding at his broken nose.

          “Threatening an innocent little girl? That’s low, even for you.” I really didn’t want to sit around and explain boundaries and limits to that douchebag, so I followed Y/N’s trail outside to where she was pacing the driveway, shaking the hand that she’d just used to punch Crowley.

          She saw me and grimaced. “First time punching someone in this timeline. Apparently this kind of muscle memory didn’t transfer timelines because this hurts like a bitch.”

          “Well, you looked great. Nice right hook. And I bet it felt pretty good.”

          “Felt  _great_. Wish it was a gun though. Hey, can I use your phone? I  _really_  need to call Addy and hear her voice.”

          I dug the phone out of my pocket and handed it to her. She immediately unlocked it and dialed. She took a few steps away before hesitating and returning to my side. As she raised the phone to her ear, her other hand reached for mine.

          “Hey Addy, it’s Aunt Slushy!”

_Aunt Slushy?_  That sounded like a story I would love to hear, but I knew better than to get in her way right now.

          “Yeah, I know. I’m so sorry about that. Mr. Winchester and I went on a business trip and I lost my phone at the airport… You’re right. Maybe the gremlins took it. I’ll have to check with them and see if I can get it back…”

          She laughed at something Addy said and I disentangled my fingers from hers so I could wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her into my side. She seemed to deflate against me, allowing me to be the one to hold her up.

          “Well, you’ll just have to ask your dad about that. If you  _do_  find any gremlins, then you’ll have to make them start paying you rent. I’ve heard they hoard candy like a dragon hoards gold… Fourteen pieces of candy for a night sounds like a reasonable rate to me. Run it past your dad and see if he thinks it should be more… So tell me about your recital last night. Did your dad record it? I’ll have to watch it next time I come visit.”

          Just listening to Y/N talk to Addy and feeling how relaxed it made her strengthened my resolve to keep Addy safe, and to keep us in this timeline.

          Y/N deserved this life. She deserved to be happy.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam comes and mediates between you, Dean, and Crowley while you discuss theories about what’s going on

**~~Reader’s POV~~**

          “Hey,” Sam nodded at us when he sat down next to Crowley.

          After I’d hung up with Addy, we’d called Sam and had him meet us at a diner in town. Dean set Crowley’s nose as well as he could and we ignored his complaints the entire way to the diner.

          “Finally.” Crowley’s voice was much more nasally than normal, which would have been funny if he hadn’t just threatened my niece’s life. “The level-headed one arrives.”

          “What happened to your nose?”

          “I broke it,” I answered.

          Sam just raised an eyebrow and looked between the three of us. “Looks like you should have called me sooner.”

          “Honestly, I should have done worse.”

          Even the memory of it made my anger bubble up again. I didn’t care that we were in a very public diner. If Crowley said a single thing about my niece, I would deck him again right in the middle of his bruised face.

          The waitress came over just then to take our orders. I saw the way she eyed Dean, but before my anger could turn to jealousy, Dean leaned over and put his arm around me. With his lips at my ear, he whispered, “You’ll get another chance to beat the hell out of him later, babe. Let’s just let Sam do the talking and enjoy the food, okay?”

          “No promises.” Turning my head, I caught his eyes that were inches from mine and I smiled a little. “But I’ll try.”

          “Good,” he grinned and kissed me quickly before turning his attention to the menu and waitress, who had the decency to back down and treat all four of us as I assumed she would treat any other group of customers. It was a  _much_  different experience than that bitch at the bar in the other timeline.

          We all ordered, Crowley bitching about how it was going to hurt to chew, then she left and Sam got right down to business.

          “So, what’s going on? How did we get sent to another timeline?”

          “Crowley said something about witches or angels or maybe a Titan and he vetoed our Djinn suggestion,” Dean supplied. “But he doesn’t have anything solid.”

          “Excuse you, Winchester. If your girlfriend hadn’t punched me, I would have told you about the time wraith that seems to be the most promising explanation.”

          “Time wraith?” I nearly laughed. “Like in  _The Flash_?”

          “ _The Flash_?” Crowley asked, and Dean looked confused as well. On Dean it was endearing. On Crowley, the confusion just made me want to punch him again.

          “Yeah. The show on the CW? Dude runs so fast that he can go backwards or forwards in time and if he changes things too much then the time wraiths come after him to try to kill him and even out the balance of the universe or something.” Neither one seemed to know what I was talking about, but Sam was on the same page as me. We had similar interests in the other timeline, so it made sense that we would share interests here too. “It’s a good show _._ ”

          “Yeah,” Sam agreed. “But it’s a show. Fiction. Time wraiths aren’t real, Crowley.”

          “Well, neither are demons in this timeline, yet here I am.”

          “Human. Here you are  _human_.”

          “If you’re human here, does that mean that Cas is here too somewhere? Human?” I asked.

          “I don’t think so. He wasn’t in that hotel room with us.” Honestly, if I heard Crowley’s nasally British accent throw down another one of our ideas, I was going to completely lose it. But Sam and Dean were shaking their heads too, so I supposed Crowley had some weight behind his words this time. “Though his meatsuit probably is. What was his name? Johnny?”

          “Jimmy Novak.”

          “Ah, yes.” The theatricality behind everything Crowley did was  _really_ testing my nerves. “Good ol’ Jimmy. See, for some reason, the supernatural isn’t real here, or at least not quite as big of a deal. So if Feathers never had a reason to come down to earth, he never needed to inhabit a meatsuit. If Castiel exists over here, he’s probably still up in heaven with a robe and a harp.”

          “Claire. Her dad is Jimmy. How’d she end up with Jody if there’s no Cas in this timeline?” We were getting off track, but I couldn’t help my curiosity with this line of questioning. “And Alex. Vampires aren’t real here. She couldn’t have gotten caught up with a nest.”

          “Claire’s dad took off a few years ago and her mom kinda got lost, so Claire went down a bad road. I found her on one of my missions and took her to Jody,” Dean explained. “As for Alex, vampire nests aren’t real, but cults still are. A few years ago the team found a cult that was trying to overturn Nebraska’s entire state government. Alex’s cult.”

          Trying to figure out how things worked out between the two timelines was really starting to mess with my head. Well, not  _starting_  to mess with my head. More like  _continuing_ to mess with my head. If I came out of this with even one shred of my sanity intact, I would consider that a win.

          “Can we get back to the subject at hand?” Crowley broke in impatiently. “Getting us back to our proper timeline?”

          Dean must have felt how tense I got at his words because he tightened his hold around my shoulder. “Dude, we’re not going back.”

          “Speaking of going back,” I said, looking at Dean. “We probably need to get back to the office soon. Your company can handle a few days without you there, but it needs me to keep running so…”

          “We’ll see what everyone thinks. But you’re probably right. Ash can hook up something to get any messages you got on your phone until we get back to your place and—”

          “Would you two shut up!” Crowley exclaimed. “We have bigger problems at hand than some pitiful business. We have an entire world waiting for us to save it from the freaking Titans.”

          “If we shut up and let you talk about your stupid time wraiths, will you leave us alone?” I asked, knowing that the answer was no.

          Crowley, however, took that as an opportunity to begin talking.

          “I’d only heard of time wraiths back in the other timeline, so I know that they’re real and not some figment of someone’s imagination over here. They’re supposedly like reapers in the sense that they aren’t really evil or good, but they just do their job.”

          “And their job is…” Dean prompted.

          “To keep the balance of time,” Sam said slowly, forehead creased as he tried to remember something. “I think I read about them during a case a few years ago. It’s coming back to me now. They kind of keep watch over the world or something like that. I didn’t really understand.”

          Crowley nodded. “Time wraiths are the reason that the angels always wiped the minds of the people you saw when they sent you zooming around to the past and future. If they hadn’t, then the wraiths would have come for them as well as everyone in the past who remembered.”

          Dean sat forward, forearms resting on edge of the table. He was getting into this, and it scared me. This was a puzzle and Dean wanted to solve it, which I understood. I wanted to figure this out too. I was just scared that in the process, he would figure out how to get back to the other timeline and he would want to go. And if I was the key, how could I say no to something the Winchesters wanted? How could I be that selfish?

          “So when Henry came to 2013, if we had sent him back in time like he wanted, would that have caught the time wraiths’ attention?”

          Sam nodded shallowly. “I think so. It makes sense, anyway. Whenever I’ve thought of time travel, going forward in time didn’t seem too disruptive because the future isn’t written yet. But when you go back in time and change things—”

          “Like Balthazar with the Titanic.”

          “But we dealt with one of the Fates then, not a time wraith,” Sam pointed out, looking over at Crowley. “What if this isn’t a time wraith?”

          “I’m fairly certain it  _is_  a time wraith. The Fates deal with death and mortality. In the case of the Titanic disaster, the Fate just wanted everyone who should be dead to be dead. She couldn’t change the past and fix what Balthazar did.” Crowley was looking straight at me, almost like he was trying to silently communicate with me. What the hell did he want me to get from his words? Something about changing the past? What’s should be dead should—

          Addy.

          “Listen, Crowley. If you want to have a snowballs chance of convincing me to change my mind and help you, then you have  _got_ to stop threatening Addy. If you don’t change your tune soon, then I  _will_  keep you here just out of spite.”

          The waitress came back with our food but I’d suddenly lost my appetite. Spite wasn’t a good enough reason to make these kinds of decisions. Sure, spite was a good motivator for things like losing weight or going to a good school. Things to prove other people wrong. But using spite as a tool when the entire balance of the world was a stake? The entire balance of  _two_  worlds, even?

          Spite and selfishness. What was that saying? Sugar and spice and everything nice. That’s what little girls are made of? Well I was made of spite and selfishness and everything bad.

          I was the worst person to have this weight on my shoulders. I wasn’t the hero that Sam and Dean were. I didn’t know how to sacrifice what I wanted for the good of the world.

* * *

          Self-reflection sucked. Trying to divine my true motivations and needs only served to take me on a highlight reel of all of my mistakes in life. Well,  _lives._  Both of them. I’d shut myself away in the bedroom as soon as we got to Bobby’s to try and figure my shit out, but all that came out was tears.

          The door opened and I quickly turned my face away, wiping at the moisture on my cheeks.

          “Hey, I brought you some food since you didn’t really eat much at breakfast,” Sam said, closing the door behind him. I couldn’t see him, but I could practically hear the gears turning in his head as he tried to figure out why I was sitting in the dark. The darkness was better for introspection and self-loathing.

          “I’m not hungry.” The excuse was meaningless, I knew. Sam was going to press until he figured out what was going on with me whether I wanted him to or not.

          He set the plate of cheese and crackers down on the bed and came to sit next to me on the couch. “Are you doing okay? Obviously not. You’re crying.”

          “Sam, please just…” I turned away from him again, rubbing at my eyes and trying to will myself into a numb, emotionless state. Unfortunately, I hadn’t quite mastered that skill in this timeline. “Just leave me alone.”

          And of course he didn’t listen. Instead, he stretched his arm across the back of the couch and turned his full attention to me. “Leaving you alone would me that I would have to go back out there and be dragged into Kevin and Ash’s argument about personal hygiene. I’d much rather be here with you.”

_Well, you shouldn’t_. “Kevin probably needs you more than I do.”

          “What’s wrong?” There it was. Sam getting sick of me trying to beat around the bush.

          “No offense Sam, but you can’t help me right now. I need to figure my own shit out and anything I say while I try to do that will make you feel like you have to defend me because I’m gonna say stuff about how I’m a horrible person and you’ll try to convince me that I’m not but you can’t see how selfish I’ve always been and you’ll say that maybe I don’t see just how amazing I am but I’ll know that it’s a lie and you’ll try to convince me that you’re telling the truth but I won’t believe you and this whole conversation just won’t end well.” I took a shallow breath after my blabbered run-on sentence. “It won’t get anywhere. It’s a waste of your time. You’re better off convincing Ash that he should invest in some conditioner and use deodorant more than once a month.”

          “Sounds like you’ve already had that conversation for us. Saved us the trouble of talking,” he said lightly, reaching over me to pull the lever for the footrest. I was too tired to protest as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and drew my legs over his. His affection just served to make me feel worse. Here I was, griping about how this shit storm affected me, when I hadn’t even asked how he was handling things. I was the worst friend in the history of friends.

          “Sam, I—”

          “Shh, no talking, remember?”

          “I was going to ask how you were doing.”

          He shifted until both of his legs were propped up on the leg rest and he was comfortably lounging back into the cushions with me curled up next to him. “Better than you, obviously. But it’s hard. I’m completely different over here than I am over there.”

          “Do you like this version of you better than the other timeline version?”

          There was silence as he considered my question. For me, there was no hesitation. The Y/N in this timeline was miles better than the Y/N in the other timeline. I could recite a list of reasons why from today until eternity. All I had to do was figure out how to shut up the other Y/N and push her into a deep dark closet somewhere so I could resume my better life over here.

          “I’m not sure. Everything is so different I can’t really compare them. Me. Compare me.”

          “Your parents are alive over here. You have an actual job. I don’t know much more about your life in this timeline, but based on everything I know about my life and Dean’s life, I have to assume that your life is lightyears better over here.”

          Once again, there was silence. This happened a lot when I had deep conversations with Sam. It was how you knew that it was a good conversation that had actual substance. Silences meant thought.

          “I’m going to ask you a question, okay?”

          “Was that your question?”

          He chuckled. “No. This is: Do you think the version of me in the other timeline is bad compared to the me in this timeline?”

          “Absolutely not.” Once again, there was no hesitation. I pulled away from where my head was on his shoulder to look at him with eyebrows drawn together. “Why would you think that? Sam, you were amazing in the other timeline. You had bad shit happen to you, but you still came through strong. And this timeline isn’t nearly as bad, but from what I’ve heard from Dean and your parents, you’re still so strong and selfless.”

          And he just looked at me meaningfully. What was it that he wanted me to—

          “No,” I groaned. “Sam, it’s not the same. The me in that timeline—”

          “Was just as great and amazing and strong as I was in that timeline.”

          “Sam, you don’t—”

          He covered my mouth with his hand. “I don’t know why you’re being so hard on yourself. Actually, I do. I was the same way. It took me a long time to figure out that I had to stop blaming myself for every mistake I made. But I got there eventually.”

          He slowly removed his hand as if testing to see if I would start belittling myself again, but something held me back. Maybe I just knew that he wasn’t done yet, and he wouldn’t rest until he’d said his share.

          “And I know it’s hard right now especially with everything that was just dumped on you, but I want you to remember that I think you’re one of the best people in the world. And I only knew you in the other timeline.”

          “Sam—”

          “One more thing. Whenever you think about how horrible you think you are, I want you to think of what Addy would say to that.”

          My mouth snapped shut. There was nothing I could say to that.

          If Addy had even the tiniest inkling of what I’d been thinking of myself the last few days, she would take my hand in her little one and pull me towards her room. She would insist that we build a blanket fort together. Then she would grab my brother’s tablet and we would lay in a cloud of pillows and blankets and choose a movie to watch. And while the movie was loading, she would take my face in her hands and tell me as seriously as she could muster that I was a princess, just like her. There would be no way that I wouldn’t be able to believe her with her beautiful eyes boring into mine.

          “You play dirty, Sam,” I muttered.

          “I know. And now, you’re going to go to sleep because I’m pretty sure you didn’t sleep much last night and I know that you didn’t sleep the night before—”

          “You don’t have to mother me,” once again, I muttered.

          “I’m not. I’m using you. If you fall asleep on me, then I have to stay here so I don’t wake you up. And if I happen to fall asleep too, then no one can get mad at me for skipping out on a few hours of research and personal hygiene dos and don’ts. After all, I’m just being a good friend.”

          A soft, genuine burst of laughter escaped my lips and I felt my mood lighten a little. I supposed I  _could_  use a nap.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You and Dean head back home, have an actual talk about all of your options, and make a decision

**~~Dean’s POV~~**

          “Have we  _ever_  backed out without giving you notice? That’s right. I’ll look forward to seeing our name on the top of that list, just like normal. Thank you.” Y/N hung up the phone and took a deep breath to calm down. “I told you that your company would die without me. That was Janelle from the charity auction. She thought that since we hadn’t been in the office for the last three days that we decided not to be sponsors anymore.”

          “What? We’ve sponsored that auction every year since I started the damn business.”

          “Yeah.” Y/N leaned back and put her feet up on the dash as we sped through the land of South Dakota. “Well, next time you decide to whisk me away in the middle of the night, give me some warning so I can wrap up some loose ends before we go.”

          Her reminder at why we’d left brought a touch of anxiety to my mood, but not as much as it should have. I knew that she could handle this kind of stress now, given that we’d been running for our lives every other day in the other timeline. “Speaking of… that agency I stole the USB from is still out there and, thanks to Crowley, they got a good look at my face.”

          “They know where my apartment is too, and that you came to me.”

          I glanced over at her sharply before returning my attention to the road. “What? How?”

          “That guy that came to finish the job, the one that Sam killed? He wasn’t one of Crowley’s.”

          Damn it. We needed to find some way to completely dismantle that organization. Well, that was the plan before, but now it was also for our safety along with the security of every financial institution in the United States. So we had to figure something out quickly. And until then, there would have to be several safety measures put in place for me and Y/N.

          “Move in with me,” I suddenly blurted out.

          I saw her surprised reaction from the corner of my eye and suddenly all of the anxiety from when I told her that I intended to marry her came rushing back and I hurried to justify my suggestion.

          “They know your apartment. And I’m sure they know mine too, but mine is safer. I already have, like, three security systems in place. You can keep most of your stuff at your place if you want to have your own place to keep your independence or whatever will give you peace of mind, but I’d feel better if—”

          “Okay.”

          Just that one word shut me up and it was my turn to be surprised. “Okay? That’s it? No argument?”

          “Yeah.”

          My mouth worked on the next few words, opening and closing silently as I processed just how easy that had been. “You sure?”

          Y/N laughed and reached over to ease my hand off the steering wheel so our joined hands were resting on the console between us. “I’m sure. We lived together in the other timeline. And moving in with you will make me feel like I’m not as much of that assistant who is sleeping with her boss here, and more like your actual girlfriend. And…” She sighed heavily. “And Sam showed me that I’m not really good at being alone, mentally or emotionally.”

          I flashed back to the memory of walking into the bedroom and seeing Y/N and my brother sleeping on the couch. He’d filled me in later on what she’d said. If being alone was bad for her, then I could definitely take the challenge to make sure I was by her side.

          “Good. That was easy.”

          “I  _do_  know how to not be difficult every once in a while, you know.”

          “Could’ve fooled me.” The wink I threw her way showed that I was kidding.

          Well, mostly. She’d been more stubborn and hard-headed this week than I’d ever seen her in either timeline.

          Y/N took her hand back and returned to the task of answering the emails that had piled up in the last few days. It wasn’t long until her phone rang and she answered it with her usual, “You’ve got Y/N.”

          I couldn’t hear the other person beyond a few garbled noises, but I assumed it was someone calling to get ahold of her for something related to my business, so I was prepared to tune them out. I hated doing work when I was driving. Sure, this wasn’t  _my_  Baby, but driving any car was when I could forget about the weight of my responsibilities for a while.

          However, my attention was caught when Y/N relaxed back into the seat. That was not the position of a professional call.

          “Carson! I’m glad you got my message. How’ve you been? Mmm-hmm… Yeah.” She laughed one of her carefree, casual laughs and I clenched my jaw. Logically, I knew I shouldn’t be jealous or worried. Y/N just agreed to move in with me. She wouldn’t make that decision lightly.

          But when she was on the phone with her ex-boyfriend, laughing? Well, let’s just say that the steering wheel might be getting some finger shaped imprints.

          “Well, it’s about time… No, I’m good… Yeah, for about a year now… Man, I wish. No, actually, Mr. Winchester is great to work for. In fact, speaking of work, we’re going to be headed your way for a charity auction in two weeks. I was hoping you could squeeze in a lunch or dinner and we could catch up…” She laughed again and I was tempted to grab the phone out of her hand and throw it out the window. “Not quite like that one. This time it’s my job to make sure no one gets drunk and accidentally buys an ugly-ass giraffe head sculpture… You do? Why would you keep something like that? Well, to each his own. Listen, I gotta go, but let me know about lunch or dinner, okay? I’ll check my schedule too.” After a minute more of sickening pleasantries, Y/N finally hung up.

          “So, Ash is having you jump right in, huh?”

          She sighed long-sufferingly. “You can say what’s really on your mind. You’re not pissed that I’m a part of your secret team. You’re pissed that I’m setting up a completely platonic date with my ex.”

          “Now that you mention it, yeah. That bugs.”

          “Well, stop it. Dean, I’m moving in with you. I’m  _your_  girlfriend. I’m only setting up this meeting so I can get a feel to see if Carson is part of the whole shenanigan to take down the banks. You have literally  _nothing_  to be jealous of.”

          I snorted and gripped the steering wheel tighter. Sure, her words made sense. But emotions never listened to logic. “Yeah? Well, watch me.”

          She didn’t reply to that. Instead, she went back to her phone, tapping her way through the few days’ worth of messages built up. I focused on driving and tried to turn my mind away from the image of Y/N across a table from that Carson idiot and toward the glorious moment when I would be behind the wheel of my precious car again. We were only two days from home, and if we drove through the night, we could make it in less than that.

          “Hi there, this is Y/N Y/L/N. I was just calling to book a room for tonight. A suite, actually. Mmm-hmm.”

          “What are you doing?” I hiss-whispered over at her. “We’re not stopping tonight.”

          She covered the microphone and turned to me. “We’re not going to  _sleep._ But I have to prove that you have nothing to be jealous of, and I once told you in the other timeline that the only car I would have sex in is  _yours_. Well, it’s not here. And our apartments are both too far away. This hotel is only half an hour away.”

          “You should have—” She should have what? Asked me? Not planned out a detour for us to have sex? Why in the world was I trying to argue this point? “Yeah. Okay.”

          Her laughter filled the car when I accelerated, the needle on the speedometer climbing up past the  _Man, I hope there isn’t a cop around here_  zone.

          “You are  _so_  easy,” she murmured before getting back to reserving the room. “Mmm-hmm. A suite would be great, thank you. Oh, and one more thing. Does the bed have a place to tie someone’s hands to the headboard?”

          My head snapped over to her when I heard the shameless way she asked the question. She was already watching me with a half-smile and sparkling eyes. I couldn’t remember the conversation we’d just been having because I was suddenly thrown into memories of the dirty confessional underneath the bed in Garth’s RV. And now there were more memories crowding in from the other timeline as well that made me shift in my seat and press down harder on the gas pedal.

          “Fantastic. See you soon.” She hung up and smirked over at me. “The Hyatt in the next town.”

          I  _really_  hoped there weren’t any cops around.

* * *

**~Reader’s POV~**

          My phone’s ringtone brought me slowly into consciousness. It took me a while to figure out it was mine. When Ash cloned me phone, my settings hadn’t all transferred over which included my specialized ringtones. A glance at the screen told me that Addy was calling, and I quickly woke up. Usually when I heard her ringtone, I answered right away.

          As quietly as I could, I pushed back the covers and slid out of the bed, trying not to move Dean’s leg that was thrown over mine, as I answered the phone in a hushed whisper.

          “Hey sweetie, what’s going on?”

          Once I was standing up and pulled on a robe, I did the mental timezone math and figured out that it was around three in the morning for her. Why was she calling me so early?

          “Aunt Slushy?” Her voice wobbled.

          “It’s me, Addy. What’s wrong?”

          I settled into the couch in the sitting room portion of the hotel suite and focused all of my energies on the conversation at hand.

          “I had a bad dream.”

          “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry. Want to tell me about it?” Why would she go all the way downstairs and grab the emergency cell phone from the kitchen drawer that my brother kept for when she went on field trips or on a trip with a friend’s family to call me instead of climbing in bed with him like she usually did when nightmares came knocking?

          “Not really. You’ll always be here, right? You won’t leave me.”

          Timelines and memories of the other life flashed through my mind. “No, sweetie. I promise. I’m always just a phone call away.”

          “Okay. I love you, Slushy.”

          “I love you too, Addy. Why don’t you go climb in bed with daddy? He’s really good at chasing away bad dreams.”

          “I don’t want to wake him up. He’s always in a bad mood when he comes home from work lately, so he needs his sleep.” Oh, bless this precious child. She was always so good at picking up on people’s moods and always thought about others first. “And Cindy has been coming around again.”

          I barely held back a slew of curses. Cindy was Addy’s mom in this timeline. She left when Addy was only three months old and occasionally came back, begging for time with her daughter. But she wasn’t the kind of person you would want anywhere near any child. After she tried and failed to kidnap Addy a few years ago, we’d kept an extra close eye on Cindy whenever we found out where she was.

          “You daddy won’t mind if you wake him up. He might actually sleep better if he knows that he’s chasing away your bad dream.” And if he knew that Cindy hadn’t managed to somehow kidnap his daughter.

          “You think so?”

          “I know so. Go wake him up and let me talk to him for a minute, okay?”

          I listened to the soft pitter patter of her feet as she walked down the hallway to my brother’s room. “Daddy? Daddy, wake up.”

          His sleep-ridden voice came through the phone. “Hi, baby girl. Did you have a bad dream again?”

          “Mmm-hmm. Aunt Slushy wants to talk to you.”

          “Alright. Come here and give me the phone.” I could picture Addy climbing into my brother’s arms and hoped that his comfort would help her relax and go back to sleep. “Y/N?”

          “Hey dude. I’m gonna let you go back to sleep, but you better call me in the morning and let me know what’s going on. Addy says you’ve been stressed at work  _and_  Cindy’s sniffing around again?”

          He was quiet for a moment. “Is that why she called you instead of waking me up tonight?”

          “Mmm-hmm. So go back to sleep now, but let me know in the morning if you want me to come up this weekend and take Addy away for a few days. Give you some time to deal with Cindy.”

          “Can you get that time off work so soon?”

          I nearly laughed. Everything had changed so quickly. “I worked a lot this weekend, so D—Mr. Winchester kinda owes me.”

          “Alright. Thanks, Y/N. Talk to you in a few hours.”

          We hung up, but I didn’t make a move to go back to the room and go back to sleep. Beyond the added stress of Cindy’s reappearance, my mind was swirling with Addy’s words. What had she dreamed about that made her so anxious to ensure that I wouldn’t leave her? And why did I feel so unsettled when I promised I would stay?

          After a minute more of trying to figure things out, I decided that I was far too tired to be thinking about this. I could deal with it in the light of day. But for now, I had a sleeping Dean Winchester in a warm bed.

          “Who was’at?” Dean slurred sleepily when I slipped back into bed. So much for not waking him up.

          “Addy.”

          “Everything okay?”

          Well, when he was holding me closely like he was, how could anything  _not_  be okay? “Not really. But you don’t have to worry about it. Just go to sleep.”

          He nuzzled into my neck and pressed a light kiss just behind my ear. “You know, I’m going to be her uncle eventually. So really, I  _will_  have to worry about it soon enough.”

          Whoa.

          I’d been keeping the Addy part of my life and the Winchester part of my life separate for so long. Even in the other timeline. They were two parts of my life that never met. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that if I married Dean, the two would become completely intertwined.

          Over here, at least.

          In the other timeline, the two could never become intertwined.

          “Hey, Dean?”

          “You told me not to hold back, babe.” He defended himself quickly. “That’s just what I’m doing.”

          “No, it’s not that.” Though now that I thought about it, that should have been part of it. I should have felt at least a touch of anxiety about Dean becoming Addy’s uncle. “I just…”

          I rolled away a few inches and turned on the lamp by the bed. Dean wiped at his eyes and scooted up until he was halfway sitting against the headboard. “Oh. This is a  _light on_  kind of conversation.”

          “Take me completely out of the equation. Say I’m willing to go back to the other timeline or stay in this one. Pretend I don’t care either way. Would you still want to stay here?”

          “But you  _do_  care,” he said slowly. It wasn’t fair of me to spring this on him right after I’d woken him up in the middle of the night. But I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep until I’d had this conversation. Hell, I might not be able to go back to sleep even after we finished the conversation.

          “Say I didn’t though.”

          He squinted at me, trying to figure out where I was coming from.

          “Look, I don’t want to go back. I’m not sure if I even can. But if Crowley’s right and the decision really does rest on my shoulders, then I need to at least give every option a chance. Sam seems pretty torn. And I’m not sure if you’re completely sold on staying here just because I am, or if it’s truly what you want.”

          “Alright.” Dean sat up further, and I reached over the side of the bed to snag his shirt and pull it on. It seemed like we weren’t going to be going back to sleep soon. “Okay. I get where you’re coming from. Maybe we should look at both sides.”

          “And without Crowley here, we might actually get somewhere.”

          Dean chuckled. “Neither of us are very good at staying calm when he’s around.”

          The room was quiet as both of us got lost in our thoughts. After a minute, Dean leaned back against the headboard and pulled me into his side.

          “The other timeline does need us a lot more than this one,” he started thinking out loud. “But what can we really do? Make them sit down and talk it out? Kill the freaking Titans?”

          “We would have a better chance than anyone else,” I contributed quietly. I hated that I was even thinking of reasons why we should go back.

          Once again, silence fell.

          If I didn’t take into account my personal life and feelings, then it was a no brainer. We should go back. But I couldn’t ignore those things either. When I told Dean that we couldn’t pick and choose the parts of our lives to consider when making decisions, that hadn’t just been me trying to get him to stop pushing for a relationship.

          So besides the Titans in the other timeline, now I had to worry about Cindy and my brother’s stress levels in this timeline. Every time Cindy decided she wanted to pretend to be a mother for a while, I always ended up flying out and helping him keep her away from Addy. If I went back to the other timeline, who would do that for him?

          “Do you think there are two versions of us?” I mused. “There are two Jodys, right? Two Alexes and Claires. They are alive in this timeline _and_  in the other timeline. So if we  _did_  go back, would there also be another version of us who kept living our lives over here?”

          “Then wouldn’t that other version of us be in the other timeline and there would be no need for this conversation?”

          “God, I hate time travel shit,” I muttered. Sure, watching shows about it was fun because the writers created their own rules, so they stuck to them. But in the real world? Hell if we knew the rules. All that time travel really did was make one gigantic mess.

          “To answer your question, though… I think I  _would_  want to stay here. My mom and dad are both alive and happy here. Sam has a real life. I have a pretty freaking awesome double life here. And I have you. And you have Addy. Everything I’ve ever wanted is here.”

          That was the answer I wanted. But I knew that I couldn’t leave it at that. “So you’re saying that in a few weeks or months, you’ll be fine knowing that we left the other timeline in the hands of angry Titans?”

          “Do you  _want_  me to convince you to go back?”

          With a sigh, I curled closer into his side, wrapping an arm around his stomach and nudging my head under his chin. “No. I just want to make sure we don’t regret whatever decision we make. I don’t want us to take the easy way, or choose what we think will piss Crowley off.”

          “Hey now,” Dean eased my head away from him until he was looking in my eyes. “Whatever we choose, which I think will be to stay here, for the record, we will be together. Promise me that. We’ll both end up in the same timeline, and we’ll stay together. As long as we have that, we can work through the regrets because we’re going to have some either way. That’s just what happens with big decisions like this.”

_Promise me that._

          It shocked me just how easily I wanted to promise him. After everything, and all the shit that I had to work through from the other timeline, I thought that it would take forever until I got into the position where I could promise him that. Where I could look at him and think of him as my future husband, the man that I was going to spent the rest of my life with. I thought that it would take ages for me to get over my self-loathing and accept that I was a good enough person to marry him and that I wouldn’t bring him down just by being involved with him.

          But in the low-light of the lamp, I had no reservations. Come what may, this timeline or that timeline, I wanted to be with this man.

          “Marry me, Dean,” I blurted out. His eyes widened and I offered a half-smile. “I know you said we could take things slow and work through our shit first, but I don’t want to work though anything without you. And we’re both legally alive here. We can get married. Then, either way we choose, we’ll be married.”

          His eyes jumped over my face, taking in everything. “You’re serious.”

          “I’m serious. I don’t wanna wait. We can be seen on a few dates in the next week or two for the benefit of the press, Skype with our families, but then we can get married. It doesn’t have to be a super big thing. Take a few weeks to plan, then… be married for the rest of our lives.”

          It seemed like an hour passed while he just stared at me. I let him process and waited for his reaction. Would he be all for it or would he think I was jumping into this too quickly with all of my baggage that I had yet to work through?

          Slowly, a smile tweaked at the corner of his lips. “We’re gonna do this, aren’t we? We’re gonna get married. For real.”

          “Dress, rings, families,  _I Do,_  and all.” My smile grew along with his and a bubble of excitement rose in my chest. In the back of my mind, I waited for the inevitable heavy brick of doubt and self-loathing to crush it, but when the moment stretched on and I felt nothing but giddiness, I figured I was good for a while. I could enjoy this moment.

          I was going to marry Dean Winchester.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Addy and your brother come into town for the wedding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I have a chapter with a word count this high, you know shit’s about to go down… Also, I just LOVE Kesha’s new album, and part of this chapter was based off her song Finding You.

**~~Reader’s POV~~**

          Dean was nervously pacing back and forth. Of course, he was on the phone, trying to use that as an excuse, but he was still obviously nervous.

          It was so cute.

          “Yes, just call my assistant next week to set up that appointment and we can go over the details… I think so too… Thank you again. I look forward to that meeting.” He hung up and I stood from the hard airport waiting chair to walk over and wrap my arms around his waist.

          “You’re cute when you’re nervous.”

          He just scoffed. “I’m not nervous. Why would I be nervous?”

          “Because you’re about to meet my brother and my niece and you’re worried that they won’t like you and since they matter so much to me that the wedding might be called off tomorrow until you can convince them that you’re good enough for me.” Wide green eyes stared into mine and I knew that I hit the nail right on the head. Going up on tip-toes, I pressed a reassuring kiss to his lips. “Don’t worry, baby. Nothing is going to go wrong. We’re going to get married tomorrow, Addy is going to love you, Ethan might interrogate you like a good little brother then he’ll love you too.”

          “How can you be so sure?”

          “Because I won over your dad in less than a week. If I can do that, then obviously we’re meant to be. Ethan and Addy will be nothing compared to him.”

          “Aunt Slushy!!!” Addy’s tiny voice called over the din in the airport. I untangled myself from Dean’s arms just in time to bend down and catch her tiny body as she flung herself at me.  Her tiny arms wrapped around my neck and she hugged me as if her life depended on it. There would never be a day that I would tire of her hugs.

          “Addy! How was the airplane ride?”

          Her eyes widened. “Scary. It got really bumpy and there was a baby that wouldn’t stop crying. I even tried to play peek-a-boo!”

          “And the baby still didn’t stop crying? Wow. Your peek-a-boo skills are legendary. There must have been something really wrong with that baby.”

          She huffed a heavy sigh that held all of the stress of a child. “You’re telling me.”

          “Hey Y/N,” Ethan greeted, wrapping his arms around both me and his daughter. When he pulled back, he kept one protective arm around my shoulder and surveyed Dean. “And you’re the fiancé?”

          “That’s me,” Dean said. If I didn’t know him so well, I would have been hard pressed to pick up on  _just_  how nervous he was. As it was, I’m sure Ethan saw a few of the nerves. “It’s good to finally meet you. Y/N’s told me all about you and Addy.”

          “That’s funny, because I haven’t heard anything about you until last week.”

          I could have pointed out that I’d obviously talked to Ethan about my boss, but all three of us knew that he was talking about Dean as my boyfriend/fiancé.

          “Daddy, be nice,” Addy chided. She was still propped on my hip and I knew that I would be carrying her until we got to the car, but she turned all of her attention to Dean. “I’m sorry about him. The gremlins won’t let him sleep good, so he’s crabby. Do you know how to make gremlins be quiet at night?”

          Dean was trying to hold back a smile and some laughter. After the dark stress that came with, well, everything the last two weeks, Addy was a breath of fresh air. She was so wonderfully innocent and straightforward. And a great tension defuser. He was so much more relaxed than he had been a few minutes before.

          “We don’t have gremlins over here,” Dean replied as if this were as serious of a conversation as he had with his business partners. I knew that would score him points with Addy. “But we have little gnomes that run around.”

          “Really?” Addy’s eyes grew about three sizes and she leaned forward towards Dean and this new information. “Do they dance like in Gnomeo and Juliet?”

          He had no idea what she was talking about, but I had to give him credit for barely letting her reference to the movie phase him. “No. These little guys are tiny, but they stomp around in the ceiling like they’re twenty feet tall.”

          “Wow. That must be really annoying. Annoying like James Ronald at down the street. He eats with his mouth open.”

          Ethan broke into the discussion and suggested we move towards the baggage claim. He seemed much more relaxed about Dean after that brief conversation with his daughter, but that didn’t stop him from slipping in a few probing questions as we completed the airport adventure.

          After we stopped by my apartment to drop off Ethan and Addy’s things and give them a few minutes to freshen up, the four of us headed to a restaurant where Dean’s family was already waiting. With my man by my side and our families surrounding us, I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the night before my wedding.

* * *

          Forever.

          Such a strange concept. Something without end. Something that transcends time.

          Seems impossible.

          I’ve never believed in forever. Everything ends. Time controls everything.

          Staring down the aisle at the man waiting for me, I didn’t picture forever. Our love wasn’t forever. We wouldn’t last forever.

          Forever. Infinite. Boundless. Eternal. Everlasting.

          Everlasting was a much better word.

          As my eyes locked on Dean’s deep green eyes, I felt the weight and freedom of everlasting love.

          That blindingly gorgeous smile beckoned me down the aisle, and with Addy leading the way and my brother beside me, I felt the first prick of tears behind my eyes.

          Perfect.

          Another seemingly unattainable concept. Faultless and unblemished.

          Seems impossible.

          Staring down the aisle at the man waiting for me, I didn’t see perfect. He wasn’t perfect. We weren’t perfect. Our lives were far from perfect.

          Perfect. Ideal. Excellent. Utopian. Immaculate. Foolproof.

          Foolproof was a much better word.

          As my eyes locked on Dean’s deep green eyes, I knew that our love with foolproof.

          His eyes were misty with tears that mirrored my own as I neared. Ethan surrendered me to Dean with a kiss on my cheek and I made the last few steps on my own.

          Timeless.

          That’s what Dean and I were.

          As my eyes locked on Dean’s deep green eyes, I knew that our love would span every timeline, every reality, every lifetime.

          The priest gave words of advice, words of celebration, words of caution. I didn’t hear any of it. Then Dean turned and retrieved a ring from Sam and everything snapped into a sudden focused clarity as if time itself had stopped.

          “I, Dean Winchester, can’t believe that you, Y/N Y/L/N, are about to become my wife. I swear to you that I will always love you with all of my heart. I was never the kind of guy who liked chick flick moments, but somehow you have me up here confessing all sorts of things in front of our families.” That earned a soft ripple of laughter among the few of us assembled. “You’ve turned me into a mushy gushy mess and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I can’t wait to have more arguments in the shower, I promise to always let you have the bed when the AC is broken, and I will stand by your side even after we die. Come Heaven or Hell, I am unconditionally yours.”

          His strong hand held mine as he slid the cool metal of the wedding band onto my finger. I couldn’t take my eyes off of his face as he nestled the band right against the engagement ring we picked out a few days ago.

          Then it was my turn. Addy handed me Dean’s ring and I took a deep breath.

          “Forever doesn’t exist.” Kind of a downer way to start off wedding vows, but it felt right. “We both know that. But when our time here ends, I’ll find you in our next life. And the next. And the next. Forever doesn’t exist, but you and I? We’re timeless. I will love you wherever and whenever we find ourselves. I know that you’re my happy ending, and I will search through a million years, Heaven, Hell, and all dimensions so that we can keep having our endless happy endings. Dean, it’s you and me. Unconditionally.”

          I managed to tear my eyes from his face long enough to slide the thick band onto his finger. The priest pronounced us man and wife and even before he said Dean could kiss the bride, my hands were framing his face and pulling his lips to mine.

          The world might be burning, both of them, but in that moment, time stopped and it was like no one was watching. All pain and injury was erased from the world. There was just Dean’s arms around me, my lips on his, and our vows to each other being sent into the cosmos where they would never be lost.

          “I love you so much,” I whispered for Dean’s ears only when we pulled back in the midst of our families’ cheering.

          “Right back at ya, baby.”

          Our peaceful, elegant, content bubble of joy was burst by the chapel door banging open. A woman strode in, flanked by four large men. She quickly surveyed the scene and there was something about her that tickled the edge of my mind.

          And not in a good way.

          “Oh, did I miss the part where I can object to this union?”

          “Who are you?” My hand closed around Dean’s as all of my hunter’s instincts came rushing back to me. I couldn’t kill someone just for being a nuisance. Not in front of Addy, at least.

          Addy. Ethan. John. Mary. Whatever was happening here, they weren’t a part of it. I looked around, trying to find a way to get them to safety, but something told me it was too late. Any sudden movements on our side would set the intruders into action.

          She clicked her tongue disapprovingly and the five intruders slowly started walking closer. “You don’t remember me? Oh, Y/N, darling, I’m hurt. Really.”

          “I doubt that.”

          One of those well-practiced, evil smiles crossed her lips. “You may not remember me, but you sure know me well.”

          “This is a private ceremony,” John stepped forward, trying to take matters into his own hands. “You need to leave now.”

          With a snap of her fingers, a strange, heavy atmosphere crowded into the room. It wasn’t familiar at all, but at the same time I felt like I’d been in this situation before.

          “Wait a minute. I recognize you from somewhere,” Dean mused, eyebrows drawn together. I kept my eyes on his face for a moment, trying to center myself. I’d just gotten married for Christ’s sake! Can’t a girl be happy for a few minutes?!

          “Take your time,” the woman said, eyes trained on my husband’s face. “We’ve got plenty of it.”

          There  _was_  something about her that tickled the back of my mind, but my brother’s anxiety-coated voice distracted me before I could put my finger on it. “Addy? Addy!”

          I tore my hand from Dean’s and spun around to face my family. Addy wasn’t moving. It was as if someone had pressed  _pause_. Her eyes were wide open and her hand slightly raised towards Ethan, but she wasn’t moving at all. She’d become a statue.

          I knelt beside her and desperately tried to get her to respond to anything, but she was completely frozen. It didn’t take too long to figure out that something supernatural was happening. I whipped around to confront the woman, but was arrested by the sight of Sam and Dean trying to get their parents to move as well. Just like Addy, they were frozen. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the priest laying on the floor, his neck twisted.

          This was the part of the hunt where shit hit the fan.

          This time though, we weren’t the hunters.

          We were the hunted.

          “What the hell did you do?” I yelled at the same time Dean bellowed, “What the hell are you?”

          “Aw, how cute. You two are nearly in sync. But I think you know the answer to both those questions.” She was reminding me of those annoyingly superior teachers who never gave you the answers when you asked because  _you can do it yourself._

          “Time wraith,” Sam said softly.

          “Time what?” Ethan was still crouched by his daughter, but he was watching the rest of the scene with wide, frightened eyes.

          Oh, god. Ethan wasn’t a part of this. In the other timeline, I hadn’t spoken to him for years. Even after I cleaned up my act, I still kept him out of my life. He didn’t deserve any of my shit. He had a nice life in the other timeline and I wasn’t about to mess that up.

          It seemed like I was just destined to bring a big, heaping pile of crap into everyone’s lives that I loved.

          “Let them go,” I growled. “Ethan, Addy, John, and Mary. Let them go. It’s the rest of us that you want.”

          “That’s where you’re wrong, bitch. I don’t  _want_  you three. I want you three  _to suffer_. And what better way to make you suffer than to correct a few of the things that slipped through the cracks over here?”

          “What the hell does that mean?” Dean was more tense than I’d seen him in the entire year I’d been his assistant. This wasn’t Dean the CEO. This was Dean the hunter.

          My own hunter’s instincts were uprooting my calmer manner as well. I thought back over the past week and one moment jumped out at me. I couldn’t shake Crowley’s annoying accent telling me what’s dead should stay dead.

          “If you kill them, you’re going to regret it.” There was no way she could misread the dark promise in my voice. The only people who were frozen were dead in the other timeline. They must be the things that slipped through the cracks in this one.

          “Really? What are you going to do to me?”

_You have no idea who you’re dealing with._

          A flicker of a memory tickled the edge of my mind, but it darted away before I could grab onto it.

          Time wraith. We hadn’t quite figured out how to kill one yet. A glance at Sam and Dean let me know that they hadn’t had any amazing lightbulb moments yet either.

_You have no idea who you’re dealing with._

_You’re right. I don’t. And I never will because we’re leaving._

_We are?_

_It’s almost midnight, baby. We’ve got that meeting with your brother and your douche of a demon friend._

          “You’re the bitch from the bar,” I breathed out in disbelief. Well, talk about lightbulb moments. Now I just had to figure out how to use this knowledge to my advantage.

          She clapped slowly. “Good job, Y/N. Took you longer than I thought it would.”

          “So, what? You’re jealous that I got Dean in both timelines? Are we seriously having some stupid rom-com type, love triangle feud?”

          “I’m not  _that_  shallow, honey.” She seemed to reconsider for a moment. “Though I can’t turn down a chance to have some fun.”

          “What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean asked.

          “What the hell is going on?” There was anxiety and fear coloring my brother’s voice.

          “Eth,” I turned to face him and my heart cracked. He was my little brother. I’d practically raised him in this timeline since our mother died from cancer when we were young and my father drunk himself into a stupor every day. It was my job to protect him. I was supposed to shield him from these kinds of horrors of the world. “I’ll explain everything later, I promise.”

          “Explain it  _now!_  My  _daughter_  isn’t moving and you don’t seem too freaked out by this! Y/N, what the hell is happening?”

          Addy. My sweet, innocent Addy. And Ethan. The little brother who didn’t deserve the shit of Addy’s mother coming around much less the shit from the other timeline catching up to him.

          I turned back to the Time Wraith and prepared myself to beg. “Let them go. I will do  _anything_  you want as long as you let them go. Unharmed.”

          “As much fun as that sounds, we don’t have enough time to negotiate terms.” She shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “So I’ll just have to continue with my initial plan.”

          “What do you mean?” Sam broke in slowly. “You’re… you’re a Time Wraith. You can literally make all the time you want.”

          “It’s sweet that you think I have that much power, Sam.” With a nod at her four goons, they pounced. My simple, white sundress didn’t restrict my movements, but in the confusion and shock of the last few minutes, it didn’t take long for the goon to grab me in a hold where I couldn’t move. My struggling didn’t budge him at all. He was unnaturally strong. This wasn’t just a normal man. The time bitch must have done something to them.

          My mind was racing a thousand miles per hour, since my body couldn’t move at all. Sam and Dean were both in similar holds to me, neither of them looked like they could move either. If the Winchesters couldn’t fight their way out of this, then what hope did Ethan or I have?

          Ethan.

          “Let me go!” His words came out in grunts as he jerked against the hold of his personal goon, who had absolutely no facial expression. No personality. He was like a supernaturally charged toy soldier. In less than a minute, he, Sam, and Dean realized the futility of struggling and they all stopped moving.

          Silence fell in the room and the time bitch resumed speaking.  

          “You see,” she began. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I groaned. Here came the monster’s monologue. That was one thing I didn’t miss about hunting. “I only have control over those three for as long as the other timeline still exists. And it’s fading fast.”

          It was fading? What did that even mean? I didn’t have time to voice my question because she just kept talking. For someone who insisted we didn’t have much time, she sure was wasting a lot of it.

          “There are certain laws of the universe that I haven’t yet figured out how to circumvent. By creating this timeline, the other one is losing… well, let’s just say it’s losing its life force. As long as both timelines are still alive though, I can’t control anyone who is alive in both of them.

          “That’s what the goons are for,” I said blandly. “Because you’re too weak for us four.”

          “You still haven’t figured it out yet, have you?” She walked right up to me. I refused to struggle or back down. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. If anything, I managed to straighten my back and square my shoulders as much as possible in my current position.

          She sidled right up in front of me until her face was mere inches from my own. “I  _own_  you. Everything good in this timeline is because of  _me_. I recreated your lives. I’m the reason you have an actual relationship with your brother over here. Your parents would have gotten in the way of you and Ethan years ago. If they’d been a bigger part of your life, you two wouldn’t be as close as you are. And I’m the reason your precious, sweet Addy loves you as much as she does. Do you really think she would cling to you as tightly as she does if she actually had a mother? No. You’d just be Aunt Y/N. Not Aunt Slushy.”

          She spun around to face Sam and Dean. “And you two. I gave you back your friends. I gave you your parents. I gave you purpose. Your success is all because of me.” She strolled up to Dean and caressed the side of his cheek. A low growl started in my throat at the sight of her touching my man, but I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop her. “And did you really think it was coincidence that Y/N lost her job just as you started interviewing for a personal assistant? Really, I’m the reason you two got married at all.”

          “Why bother?” Dean spat out. “If you hate us so much, why make our lives better?”

          She withdrew a knife from her purse and grinned. “Because it’ll hurt so much more when I take it all away. I was only supposed to send you to a separate timeline. They didn’t know that by doing that, I would actually be killing them too.”

          Sunlight from the windows was glinting off the knife and I could barely breathe. If this was headed where I thought it was then I was going to have to…

          Have to what? I couldn’t do anything.

          “Who are you talking about?” Dean growled. His eyes were darting all around the room, searching for a solution. But I had the sickening feeling that he wasn’t going to find it.

          “The Titans. Duh.” Oh, right. Because of course we should have known that. “You three were annoying them, so they contracted my services to get rid of you. Little did they know that I was planning on this anyway.”

          “Why? Why do you hate us?” That was Sam. He and Dean were better at this than I was. They were trying to play for more time. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her knife. She had plans for that weapon, and I didn’t like any of the possibilities my mind was coming up with.

          “You’re the Winchesters. Do I really need a reason?”

          “What about me?” I wasn’t a Winchester. If I could get it through her head that I wasn’t quite as bad, then maybe I could get Ethan and Addy out of here. Our odds would become better and we could get John and Mary free too.

          “They love you. Your pain will make theirs worse.” She strolled over and reached up to caress my cheek, a mirror image of what she did with Dean. “Besides, you’re a Winchester now. Welcome to the family,  _Mrs._  Winchester.”

          “You  _suck_  at wedding presents.” It was a bad comeback, but I wasn’t exactly in the frame of mind to banter with a monster at the moment.

          “You want a present? Here you go.”

          She took a few steps away from me and I watched helplessly as she approached Addy. With the hand that didn’t hold the knife, she gently ran her fingers from Addy’s forehead, down her cheek, and ended at her chin.

          “Daddy? What’s happening?”

          Acute panic and pain speared me right through my heart at her tiny voice. It seemed like she could only move her head. The rest of her body was still frozen.

          “Stop this! I will do  _whatever_  you want! Let her go. I swear, I will… I’ll be your bitch. I’ll be your slave, I’ll let you do whatever the hell you want to me, but just let her go!” It was no use to struggle against the goon’s hold on me, but that didn’t stop me from trying.

          “Slushy?”

          “Addy, baby, it’s going to be okay. I’m gonna…” I couldn’t finish that sentence. I couldn’t promise her a happy ending. My eyes darted up to Ethan’s and I saw his heart shatter when he read the truth in my eyes. I couldn’t fix this. Tears welled up and my breath hitched with a sob.

          “You want me, bitch?” Dean yelled. “I’m right here. Come and get me!”

          “Addy, close your eyes,” Ethan’s low voice was steadier than I’d expected. He might not know what was happening, be he wasn’t dumb. He could read the room. If both Dean  _and_  I were willing to completely give ourselves up, then he knew enough to see that we didn’t have hope. Addy looked at him and he bit his lip as he struggled to keep his tears down. This time, his voice wavered. “Baby girl, it’s gonna be alright if you close your eyes.”

          “This is so sweet,” the wraith cut in. She moved until she was behind Addy, and she swept Addy’s hair behind her shoulders. The knife in her hand lay on Addy’s shoulder, far too close to her neck for comfort.

          “Slushy? Who is this? Why is she touching me?”

          I looked away for a second to collect myself, but even that brief second was too long and I returned my attention back to Addy. “Do what your daddy says, sweetie. Close your eyes.”

          Her bottom lip started trembling. “I’m scared.”

          “You think this is a power play?” Sam bellowed from the other side of the alter. “She’s just a little girl! You wanna show us how strong you are, take a swing at me!”

          “Let her go,” Ethan begged. “Take me instead.”

          “Who says I’m not going to kill both of you?”

          I couldn’t go through this. Not again. Addy was dead in the other timeline because of me. I couldn’t let her be killed here because of me. “You’ve made your fucking point, okay? You want me to suffer? That’s fine. I will suffer. I’ll do whatever you want and I will  _never_  see my family again. Is that what you want? Knowing that I  _could_ see them, but that I won’t would be way worse than watching you…”

          I couldn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t lie and make her believe it. If both Ethan and Addy were alive, I could handle anything. But if I had to watch her kill either of them…

          She just smirked at me. “This is your wedding present, Y/N. I’m giving you last words to your precious Addy. I suggest you take advantage of it.”

          This couldn’t be happening.

          “Slushy?”

          I failed her again.

          “Addy, baby, I love you. Don’t you  _ever_  forget that.”

          “I love you too, Slushy.”

          Oh, how I wished I could wipe away her tears. She was young, but she was smart. She knew that something really,  _really_  bad was happening and it was scaring her to death. I wanted to wish her away somewhere safe.

          But I couldn’t.

          “Ethan?” I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t make her calm down or feel better. Not when she was facing death because of me.

          “Addy look at me,” he took over, managing a small smile through the tears. He was a much better parent than I ever was and could ever hope to be. “I love you too. You’re gonna be just fine. Close your eyes and imagine all the gremlins waiting for you back home, okay? They can’t wait to see you again and play with you.”

          She slowly closed her eyes. I was cut off at the ankles, knowing I would never see her beautiful blue eyes again.

          “Do you think they’ll finally tell me their names?” She asked. Her voice was starting to become more confident as the gremlins chased her fears away. “I don’t like calling them Gremlin Number One and The Blue Gremlin. I’d rather call them by their real names.”

          Ethan drew in a quick breath as a new wave of tears rolled down his cheeks. “I’m sure they will, baby girl. We’ll make them some homemade candy if they do.”

          She giggled, and I had to bite my lip to stop the loud sob from escaping. “I might eat it all before they can have any though.”

          “Then we’ll just make more.”

          “Time’s up,” the wraith said softly. I helplessly watched in abject horror as she drew the knife across Addy’s neck, opening a line of bright red that quickly soaked through her shirt and dripped onto the floor.

          From somewhere deep inside me, an eternal, anguished shriek spread into every cell of my body, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t make a sound.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Addy is dead and now the Time Wraith sets her attention on the Winchesters

**~Dean’s POV~**

          Even over Ethan’s pained keening, I could still hear the unmistakable thump as Addy’s body hit the floor. She was finally free of the wraith’s hold on her, but it came as no relief.

          Maybe I was out of practice in this timeline, or maybe this really was as horrific as it seemed, but I was having a hard time accepting that the time wraith really could have just killed Addy like that. It was as if my heart stopped beating and lungs shrunk. I couldn’t process this.

          “You just made a huge mistake,” Y/N’s low, shaky voice broke through the fog surrounding me.

          The time wraith just cocked her head and surveyed her. “Did I?”

          I couldn’t see Y/N’s face, but I saw the slow way her head lifted from her niece’s motionless form on the floor and could just imagine the hatred and fire in her eyes. “Keep enjoying yourself while you can, because you don’t have much time left. I’ll make sure of that.”

          “Cute. It’s just too bad that you have no control over anything that happens here.”

          “We have more control than you think,” I butted in, desperate to get the attention off of Y/N. Someone capable of killing a defenseless little girl would have no problem killing Y/N or Ethan. And I wasn’t sure how Y/N was going to react to all of this. She might just goad the wraith on until she got so angry that Y/N would be the next dead body.

          These were not the thoughts I should be having on my wedding day.

          “Is that true?” The wraith seemed unconcerned.

          Man, this bitch was really getting on my nerves. As she stepped over Addy’s body and headed my way, I struggled against the hold of the unnaturally strong man holding me. The closer the wraith got, the tighter his hold on me became. As if I could escape before.

          “Dude, seriously?” I twisted my head to try and see his expressionless face. These dudes were super creepy.

          “He can’t answer you, Dean. You see, he’s not really a human.”

          “Then what is he?” Sam asked.

          She stopped right in front of me, but gave Sam a cool look. “I suppose you could say he’s a figment of time. Just a little trick I’ve learned over the millennia I’ve existed.”

          “Time gollums?” Sam, ever the nerd, put a name to the expressionless body builders behind each of us.

          “This is all a joke, right? I’m hallucinating or on drugs or something. It’s not really happening,” Ethan’s soft words drew all of our attention, but I had no idea how to respond. Just watching his last conversation with Addy nearly broke me. He’d just lost a child. He had to comfort her before she died. No parent should have to do that.

          I wished I could tell him this wasn’t real.

          “I’ll fix it, Eth,” Y/N whispered resolutely. She was making a plan, and I wasn’t sure I was going to like it.

          “How? Addy is  _dead_ , Y/N!”

          “I know that!” she shouted back. “I know that she’s dead and I know that it’s all my fault, okay? I get that! But I swear to you that I  _will_  get you your life back. I swear it on mom’s grave. I’ll make it better for you.”

          The wraith eyed Y/N with a half-smile. “Your girl’s got some fire in her, Dean. Never thought she was one to make promises she couldn’t keep though.”

          “She’s not,” I mumbled, trying to figure out what Y/N was planning. She  _was_  planning something. I was sure of it.

          Before I could delve too deeply into her possible plans, the air in the room changed. It felt like a glitch in the matrix and a shifting of tectonic plates all at the same time. For a brief second, the time gollums disappeared, only to be replaced in the next moment in time. It wasn’t enough time for us to make our move, but it was enough to upset the balance.

          “Well, looks like our time is nearly up,” the wraith said. “I’m sorry, Sam and Dean, but you won’t get the same courtesy of last words with your parents as the Y/L/Ns got.”

          “No!” I thrashed against the gollum’s hold. “Don’t you  _touch_ them!”

          “What just happened?” Y/N asked way too calmly.

          The wraith didn’t recognize the danger of Y/N’s question. Y/N might not have been the best at researching, but when she caught the scent of something, she knew exactly where to dig. Exactly where to prod. Exactly what to ask.

          “As much as I would love to explain the intricacies of the complex ramifications that occur when a timeline is thrown off course from where it was originally meant to be, I don’t have the time right now.”

          She started walking towards my parents, silver knife in hand. Sam and I both started yelling and pulling against our gollums, but Y/N’s voice raised above ours.

          “You’re lying.”

          When the wraith paused in the middle of a step, Sam quieted down, instantly alert. I followed his lead, though I was more concerned for Y/N when the wraith turned and quickly walked back to her. “What did you say to me, bitch?”

          “You’re lying. We’re not running out of time. Not yet, at least. You’re all show. Drama. You want us desperate. You want us to believe that you’re in charge, but you’re  _not_.”

          Even as my heart swelled in pride for the way my girl wasn’t giving a single inch, I couldn’t help the overwhelming fear now that she was smack in the spotlight once again. “Y/N, maybe this isn’t the best—”

          “I  _know_  you,” Y/N completely ignored me. “You said that yourself. I know you because I  _am_  you. Or you’re me. Or whatever. We’re the same. We think the same, we react the same. We’re made from the same mold.”

          The wraith just laughed. But, was that an undercurrent of anxiety in the sound? “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Do you really think that a measly human like yourself can stand up to a Time Wraith? My kind is  _eternal_. We’re  _powerful_. We’re  _gods_.”

          “You’re weak.”

          “You pitiful, disrespectful little girl,” the wraith practically spat in Y/N’s face. “I changed the entire future of this planet just because I wanted to.”

          Y/N tilted her head and carefully considered her next words. She was on the warpath. This was the part of the hunt where she completely turned everything on its head. This was the part of the hunt where she came through. She could read people like they were headlines on the daily newspaper. She knew exactly which buttons to push.

          This was the part where she could save the day. She could save my parents and, hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if she could bring Addy back too.

          “You didn’t change the future. You killed one version of the future—oh, wait. You didn’t kill it because it’s not dead yet. You can’t control me and that’s driving you crazy. You want me to break, but you  _can’t_ break me because the other timeline is still going strong.”

          “Maybe so. But it’s only a matter of time before that timeline dies and you’re  _mine_. That time is almost up, darling.”

          “No, it’s not. We’re the same and I would never leave something this big to the last minute. Maybe it really is dying. But not today. Not this week. Not even this month. I bet you jumped for joy when Dean and I planned our wedding for this soon. Everyone together in the same room.”

          “It did make my job easier,” the wraith conceded.

          “Why concern yourself with three measly humans when you’re this cosmic, powerful being who can exist outside the planes of reality? Who can walk between timelines and worlds? That’s what I don’t get.”

          I chanced a glance at Sam to see what he was making of this conversation. His eyebrows were drawn together and he was watching Y/N closely. It seemed like he had a better idea at what was happening that I did.

          “There’s a lot you don’t understand.”

          “There’s a lot more that I do.” Y/N raised her chin and eyed the wraith coolly. “Nice chat. I can’t wait to kill you.”

          This time the wraith’s laugh was completely sincere. There was nothing anxious or hidden underneath. “Keep dreaming big, bitch. Makes it so much more fun to tear those dreams down.”

          “Oh, I will. At least I only have to worry about you tearing down my dreams. It seems like you’ve got bigger problems.”

          Narrow, calculating eyes were narrowed at Y/N and I was surprised that she didn’t seem the least bit concerned. She’d just goaded the very creature that had the power to shift an entire timeline. Either she really had figured out a way out of this, or she was bluffing.

          I hoped to God it wasn’t the latter.

          “A word of advice, Y/N. Stay in your own lane.”

          Y/N tilted her head slightly and pursed her lips. “Where’s the fun in that? Your lane seems so much more exciting.”

          “Oh, it is.” The wraith smirked and slowly walked back over towards my parents.

          “Don’t you  _dare_  touch them, you  _bitch!_ ” My threat was hollow and we all knew it. There wasn’t a thing I could do until this stupid gollum let me go.

          She just looked at Sam and me coolly. “I truly am sorry that you didn’t get your last words with them.”

          “Yeah,” Sam scoffed. “You sure sound sorry.”

          “It never had to be you two,” she mused softly as she stepped up to my mother. Her words didn’t sink in because I couldn’t take my eyes off of the knife as it danced around mom’s neck. The silver tip left a thin white line as it trailed over her skin. The wraith cut a quick glance to me and Sam before returning to her task at hand. “Truly, I am sorry.”

          Sam’s shouts joined mine as we begged and pleaded and implored the wraith to leave our parents alone. Our voices were lost as she made two quick slices, opening deep gashes in my parents’ necks. There was a moment of frozen time before the wraith stepped back and two more bodies hit the floor. It was a sound that would never leave my memories.

          One more moment of frozen time, then we were all free. The time gollums and the wraith were both gone, leaving us with four dead bodies.

* * *

**~Reader’s POV~**

          Ideally, my heart would be frozen by now. I would be able to take a completely objective look at the situation. I would be led by logic.

          But nothing about this situation was ideal. Addy was dead, Ethan was scarred for life, and Sam and Dean had to mourn their parents’ deaths all over again. This time, though, they had watched as John and Mary were murdered. Just like Addy.

          My heart wasn’t frozen, but I wasn’t exactly sure it even existed anymore. The day had started out so well. It was the perfect day for a wedding.

          And now half of the wedding party was dead.

          Sam and Dean fell to the ground next to their parents after the gollums disappeared, and Ethan stumbled over to Addy’s lifeless body. My eyes were drawn to the priest. An innocent bystander in this story. Neck snapped like it was nothing. Like  _he_  was nothing. But he had people who loved him. People who would miss him. He wasn’t nothing. He wasn’t a nobody. But he was dead because of me.

_It never had to be you two_  the wraith had said to Sam and Dean. Whatever was happening, it was all my fault. She was focused on me.

          So it was up to me to fix it.

          “Hey Dean,” I knelt beside him, intending to ask for his phone. But then he turned his head and I shattered at the tears glistening on his cheeks. Immediately, I gathered him in my arms.

          Ethan would be okay, if my plan worked. He wouldn’t remember any of this. But Sam and Dean and me… We would have to deal with all of these memories whether I succeeded or failed.

          “I need your phone,” I whispered after a few minutes. “I need to call Crowley.”

          He eased his face out of my neck. “So you  _do_  have a plan.”

          A glance over my shoulder told me that Ethan was cradling Addy in his arms, unaware of anything else. “I’m fixing everything for Ethan. But I don’t think it’ll help us at all.”

          “We’re going back,” Sam said, his voice thicker than normal.

          I nodded, and it felt like all three of us were in agreement. This was the best thing to do. “I need Crowley. He’s our best shot. After all, he figured out the whole memory drug thing.”

          Dean reached into his inner pocket of his tux and withdrew his phone, handing it to me. I unlocked it and scrolled down until I found Crowley’s name and pressed call. He answered and I barely had time to tell him where we were before he hung up, saying he was on his way.

          “Y/N?” Ethan’s trembling voice drew me over to him. “What’s going on?”

          I could barely handle looking down at my precious Addy’s face, but I couldn’t make myself look away. My arms circled my little brother and I leaned my head against his as our eyes were locked on her. “It’s… it’s hard to explain, Eth. I’m so sorry.”

          “You… you said you would fix it? How? Addy’s dead. You can’t bring her back from the dead.”

          The last sentence had a note of hope and I hated letting him down. He lifted his eyes to mine, and I watched his hope crumble when I shook my head. “I can’t. She’s gone, Eth. And this doesn’t make any sense, but just trust me, okay? I’m going to get you your life back. I swear on mom’s grave.”

          “Congratulations on the nuptials,” Crowley announced his presence, dramatically flinging open both doors. “I have to say, I  _am_  a little hurt that I wasn’t invited.”

          “Not the time, Crowley,” Sam warned lowly.

          At the warning, Crowley stopped and finally took in the scene. “Oh. Well, it seems like you’re finally ready to return things to how they should be.”

          “Yes.” I stood up, leaving Ethan with Addy. He grew more and more confused with every word I said as I outlined my plan and told everyone what I’d assumed based on my conversation with the time bitch, but it wouldn’t matter soon enough. He wouldn’t have any memory of this place.

          At the end of my explanation, Crowley set the briefcase that once contained the memory drugs on the alter and opened it up. A single, small vial of dark purple liquid was nestled inside.

          This entire mess in this timeline started with this briefcase. It started with the three empty spots where the drugs that Sam, Dean, and I had injected ourselves with.

          I reached out and picked up the last vial, methodically attaching it to the needle. Hopefully this mess would end with this last vial.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley’s drug sends you to the world between timelines where you face a difficult decision.

**~Reader’s POV~**

          My eyes opened slowly, heavily. It was like I’d been rudely awakened when I wasn’t done sleeping yet. My eyelids protested the movement.

          The drug.

          Suddenly my eyes popped open, and any trace of sleepiness evaporated. I’d injected myself with Crowley’s drug. He said it would send my consciousness to the space between worlds. This was the land of Time Wraiths. I was a human outside of time.

          Or, at least, I thought I was. If the drug worked and this wasn’t one giant hallucination, then I was. That’s what I had to believe. This had to work.

          A purple grey fog filled the entire space. It was impossible to tell just how far it extended. My brain was tickled with a smell that was familiar and foreign at the same time. The air was dry and sweet, but fresh like after the first rainfall of autumn.

          Slowly, I turned around. The fog surrounded me, but in the distance, I could barely make out something within the fog. My feet started taking me towards the shapes, but I wasn’t standing on anything. There was no ground, yet I wasn’t free-falling. It was disconcerting, to say the least. I pushed through, nonetheless.

          This had to work.

          The shapes in the fog became clearer as I approached, and millions of whispers built up within the fog, tickling my ears.

          After walking for what felt like years, the shapes materialized into a long line of boxes in all hues of purple and all sizes. The corners of some jutted into the walls of the next, and there were boxes upon boxes stacked on top of each other. To my left, the boxes extended far back into the fog. Even as they disappeared into the fog, I could see that they went for miles. But the line of boxes to my right faded away into fog within a few feet, disappearing completely.

          It was eerily beautiful.

          Fog began swirling around my feet, seeming to come to life. I looked to my left and saw the boxes all moving away from me a few feet, like a shiver going down the line. It happened so silently that even the whispers in the air paused for the moment.

          Curious, I started walking down the line. Whatever had caused the movement had started to the left. That was my best chance at finding the time bitch.

          The further down I walked, the more… settled the air became. It was the difference between an elementary school and a retirement home.

          I paused when I caught movement from the corner of my eye, my hunter’s instincts kicking in. There, in the distance further down the line, was a figure in a black, hooded robe, seeming to glide across the space. The hood cast their face in shadows, but every so often, a hand would reach out from the folds and brush along a single box. At the touch of the robed figure, the box would change size, or become a lighter shade of purple. I stood still for a few minutes, cataloging every movement the robed figure made.

          Was this the time bitch?

          The figure kept walking further back, and I silently followed. Crowley thought that the drug he gave me would keep me here as long as I wanted, so I had enough time to get comfortable and plan a course of action. Everything had to work out.

          For Ethan’s sake, this had to work.

          A few minutes later, I noticed something else in the distance. It looked like a nearly identical line of transparent boxes to the ones we were following. I squinted further into the dark, hazy smoke and could swear that there was a definitive meeting point for the two lines. I glanced back at the hooded figure before heading past it, searching for the meeting point I thought I saw.

_You killed one version of the future_.

          If there are two versions of the future, does that mean that they share the same past? That at some point, the timeline split or branched off? Maybe that’s why the hunter version of the timeline is dying. The lifeforce of the timeline or whatever was being redirected into this new timeline.

          I kept walking down the line, feeling more and more weight of time laying on my shoulders. It definitely felt like I was heading back into the past.

          Hours or days passed before I reached the juncture. The original timeline was dying. The boxes fading, becoming transparent, turning into ghosts. It wasn’t hard to figure that out. The hunter timeline was definitely the original one, since it was in line with the past. This new timeline jutted off at an angle. It was an afterthought.

          “How did you get here?”

          I jerked around at the revolting voice and watched as the robed figure walked closer, the robe seeming to dissolve into the fog until I was looking at the time bitch from the church.

          “What did you change here?” I motioned to the point where the three lines met. “It had to have been something pretty big, otherwise the timeline would have just shifted, like it did a few minutes ago. But no, the thing you changed was big enough to completely create an entirely different future.”

          She kept drawing closer and my head kept telling me to run, but I forced my legs to stand their ground. This might be her territory now, but I was still angry. I was still in charge. I still had a purpose.

          “You can’t be here,” she growled.

          “Why not? Is my presence disrupting something? Sending out a signal to the other Time Wraiths that you fucked up? Do you think they’ll realize that you’ve gone rogue? That they’ll come and fix your mistakes? Put things back how they were?” She tried hiding her reaction to my ramblings, but I could tell that I wasn’t too far off the mark.

          “Shut up, bitch. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

          “I  _told_ you. I know more than you think I do.”

          “No you don’t!” She looked around quickly, reminding me of a mouse surrounded by vultures. Her voice was quieter when she spoke next. “You don’t understand this world, Y/N. If they find out, they’ll kill me—”

          “Perfect.”

          “—And that means that everything I’ve ever changed will go back to how it was.”

          “I’m failing to see the bad part here.”

          “Ethan will die.”

          Ice spread through my veins. “What do you mean? He’s alive in  _both_ timelines. You’re just bluffing. Trying to—”

          “I saved his life years ago, Y/N. That car crash that killed your parents? Ethan was supposed to be in the car with all of you. He was the only person who died in that crash originally.”

          “No,” I shook my head and backed away, refusing to believe. “My parents died in that crash. I got hurt in that crash. Ethan’s bus was late coming back from the football game. You didn’t change anything.”

          She took a step forward, and I could only watch with wide eyes as she slowly regained control of this situation. “I made his bus late. It’s what I do. I fix moments in time to make people’s lives better.”

          “My parents died!” I yelled. “I became an addict who killed her own daughter because of that car crash! You didn’t  _fix_  our lives! All that you’ve ever done is  _ruin_  them!”

          “After that moment, yes. There was something about you that changed everything. If it hadn’t been for you, my plan would have gone off without a hitch. You  _and_  you parents would have survived that crash. Ethan would be on the late bus home, and the four of you would have lived a happy life. But  _you_  changed something.  _You_  killed your parents. It wasn’t me.”

          “No. No, that’s… I didn’t kill them.”

          The time bitch kept advancing on me, her eyes burning into my soul. “I still can’t figure it out. Why  _you’re_  so special. What’s so special about you. I’ve spent every moment since that time trying to figure it out.”

          “Maybe it’s not me. Maybe you just fucked up.”

          “Maybe,” she agreed, but there was a gleam in her eye that said otherwise. “Regardless, if you stay here, you’ll bring the other Time Wraiths and they’ll kill me. You’ll be choosing your parents over Ethan. Over the Winchesters. You’ll be choosing your parents over your precious Dean Winchester. Going back to the very first timeline will erase all memories of the other timelines I’ve created. You won’t even remember Dean at all. Is that what you really want?”

          It was because of that car crash and my resulting addiction that I even met Dean in the first place. The events in my life led me to this point. Could I really erase all of that?

          The time bitch continued. “Things will  _never_  go back to how they were, Y/N. It doesn’t matter which timeline you end up in, everything will be different.”

          I couldn’t lose Dean.

          But I couldn’t let this bitch live.

          “Just let everything stay how it is.” Her voice was slow and calm. She was trying to manipulate me.

          It wasn’t going to work.

          She deserved to die.

          “Let them come.” I straightened my shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. “I’ll deal with everything once you’re dead.”

* * *

**~Dean’s POV~**

          Like the pop of a bubble, I jerked awake. My sudden movement disrupted my balance and nearly sent me falling off the side of the grungy hotel bed.

          Wait.

          Hotel bed.

          Not church chapel.

          My eyes darted around the room, taking in the tacky old western décor and cheap wall paper of the hotel room we’d been in before the wraith sent us to the other timeline. Y/N did it. She got us back to the original timeline.

          I looked around the room for her as Sam woke up with a groan, and Crowley rolled over from where he’d fallen onto the ground. But Y/N wasn’t on the other bed where she had been before the timeline shit.

          “Y/N?” I called, searching the room for her.

          She promised. She had _promised_  that we would end up in the same timeline no matter what.

          But she wasn’t here.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of it all

**~Dean’s POV~**

          “Y/N?” I stood up to search for her and nearly fell over. The sudden movement made my head swim. Apparently, traveling between timelines like this was just like a bad hangover. It made me wonder why I never felt like this when the Time Wraith sent us to the other timeline.

          But that wasn’t important right now.

          Y/N was.

          “She did it?” Sam’s voice cracked, like it always did right after waking up.

          “We’re here, aren’t we?” I answered testily, still not seeing my wife anywhere.

          A soft noise jerked my head over to the mostly closed bathroom door. I pushed aside the headache that had blossomed and strode to the door in the next moment. Gently pushing the door open, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Y/N on the floor next to the toilet, obviously having just puked. She noticed me and offered a weak smile as she reached up to flush the toilet.

          “Hey baby,” I called softly, crouching down in front of her. I reached over and cupped her cheek in my hand, softly rubbing my thumb over her cheekbone. She covered my hand with her own and leaned into my touch, closing her eyes. Her skin was clammy and there were new bags under her eyes. “You don’t look so good.”

          “Yeah, well, Time Wraiths are despicable beings and being around them is like that moment the alcohol hits all at once after taking ten shots in a row. Or twenty. Or… whatever. It sucks.”

          “But we’re back here so… that means everything worked out in the end, right?” I prayed it wasn’t too much to hope that everything went smoothly for once.

          “Kinda. Let me swish some mouthwash then I’ll tell you guys all about it.” Her eyes darted up to the door where Sam and Crowley were peeking in.

          They retreated back into the room and I reached for both of Y/N’s hands to pull her up. We were all in our clothes from this timeline, but my fingers rubbed against the wedding ring from the other timeline. Shouldn’t the rings have been left behind just like our wedding clothes?

          “Why do we still have our rings? Not that I’m complaining. At all.”

          “Because I drive a hard bargain.” She smiled tiredly at me before turning to the sink and grabbing for the mouthwash. “There’s a lot to tell about what happened there, but I didn’t want to give up the rings. We went through too damn much to lose these.”

          It made no sense that she could pick and choose details that small. Though, I supposed that I had no idea what happened wherever she went, so I couldn’t really form a good opinion yet.

          As soon as she finished rinsing out the mouthwash, she turned around and kissed me, framing my face with her hands. My hands went to her waist, pulling her closer. This was still our wedding day, despite all of the craziness. We  _were_  newlyweds, after all.

          I made a promise to myself in that moment that I would find a few days, soon, when Y/N and I could get away and forget about the timelines and the Titans and whatever else, and we could have a real honeymoon.

          That  _had_  to happen.

          “I love you so much, Dean,” Y/N mumbled against my lips. “No matter what happens after I tell you what happened, I will always love you.”

          “You’re scaring me, Y/N.”

          “A lot happened. I learned a lot. And a lot changed. But hopefully, not too much. It’ll make sense when I tell you.”

          She started walking out of the bathroom, but I couldn’t let her go like that. I pulled her back to me for another kiss. She said a lot had changed, but I knew one thing that never would.

          “I love you too, Y/N. Always will. No matter what you say next, I will  _always_ love you. I meant what I said in my vows. Come Heaven or Hell, I am unconditionally yours.”

          Some of the clouds on her face cleared and she smiled up at me, her body swaying into mine. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

          After another kiss, she led me out to the room where Sam and Crowley were sitting in brooding silence. Their attention swung to Y/N as soon as she sat down on one of the beds, tugging my hand until I sat next to her.

          “The Time Wraith who did this to us is dead.” That was a good start. Hopefully the rest of her tale wouldn’t go downhill. “Me being in that  _between world_  place drew the attention of the other wraiths and they showed up and realized that the bitch had gone rogue, so they killed her.”

          “Just like we hoped,” Crowley interjected, and Y/N nodded.

          “Yeah. But one complication when a Time Wraith dies, is that everything that wraith has changed will revert back to the original events. That’s why Time Wraiths don’t interact with timelines much, except for her, and why they’re so damn hard to kill. If they changed more timelines, I’m sure we would have more information on them, but since they aren’t typically a threat, there’s no need to know how to deal with them, you know?”

          Sam’s forehead was creased and he leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. “So when the other wraiths killed the Time Wraith who did this all, we were sent back here?”

          “Not exactly,” Y/N hedged. “This isn’t even the original timeline.”

          Y/N went on to explain the car crash and the wraith’s altruistic motives. The way events were turned on their head. How the wraith blamed Y/N for some reason.

          “If things had gone back to the very original timeline, then I wouldn’t be here. You guys would still be hunting, probably. But I wouldn’t. My parents would be alive, Ethan would be dead, and I wouldn’t have gone down the road that led me here.”

          “Then why are you here?” Crowley piped up.

          “Because the Time Wraith was right.” Y/N sighed heavily, hesitantly. “I did have something to do with the car crash not turning out how she planned. When she tried to change my timeline, the timeline fought back because technically, I was never supposed to be born.”

          Silence fell. What did that even mean?

          After a minute of letting us process her bombshell, she threw another grenade in. “Changes in timelines don’t react the same to me because I’m not really in a timeline. The wraiths know every single soul in every single timeline. I guess it’s like they have a ledger of people who are supposed to be born. But I’m not on that ledger.”

          “Why not?”

          “Because… because that’s how Time Wraiths are created. When I die, I will turn into a Time Wraith.”

          Well.

          Fuck.

* * *

          “I can’t believe the Time Wraiths let you choose which version of your life you wanted to go to,” I whispered later that night. We’d gotten our own room and were laying in bed. This was our wedding night, but too much had happened, too much weight of death and timelines were crowding around, and we were both just too damn tired to truly enjoy the night.

          It had taken a while to wrap my head around the fact that I was married to a future Time Wraith. Actually, I still hadn’t completely wrapped my head around that. I don’t think Y/N had either.

          “They just don’t want me trying to fuck things up. I don’t have any cool powers until I die, but I guess if I really wanted to, I could still mess around and make their lives hell.” She snuggled closer into my side. “So they let me pick where I wanted to go so I would be happier and less likely to want things to change.”

          “Why this one, though? Your parents are dead. You hunt monsters. You don’t talk to your brother… I don’t get it.”

          Reversing her previous actions, she pulled away from me so that she could meet my eyes. “This is the only timeline where I know you. It might not be what was originally meant to be, but it’s what’s meant to be forever.” She settled back down into my arms, wrapping one of her arms around my waist. “Besides, I promised Ethan I would get him his life back. He has a family in this timeline. He’s happy here.”

          There was a heavy silence, full of the words Y/N left unsaid.

          “You should go talk to him. Try to become a family again.”

          “No.” Her answer was immediate. “I treated him like shit, Dean. When I was on drugs, I lived with him for a few months. I stole from him to buy more drugs. I yelled at him, blamed him for our parents’ deaths. I… I hit him more than once. I… I wasn’t a good person. He probably hates me and I don’t blame him. I don’t want to dredge up any of those memories. He’s happy now, and I’m not going to ruin that.”

          This was new information. I always knew that her relationship was strained with Ethan, but I never knew why. The Y/N that she described when she was on drugs was a complete stranger to me. I couldn’t imagine her hitting anyone that wasn’t trying to kill her.

          “What about you, though? You’re not going to be really happy until you fix your relationship with him. I saw how close you were in the other timeline. You really love him, Y/N. You need him in your life, at least a little.”

          “He’s happy, Dean. I can’t—”

          “Wouldn’t he be happier if he knew that you’re still alive? That you got better? That you still love him and want to fix what you did? That you married the most handsome and loving guy on this planet? If this was me and Sam, I’d want to know.”

          She shifted, rolling over and leaving me cold. “Drop it, Dean. If I talk to him, suddenly he’s a target. I can’t have him  _and_  hunt.”

          The memory of Addy’s body hitting the floor filled the space between us. I knew all too well the kind of threat that associating with hunters brought regular civilians.

          But I also saw how much her family meant to Y/N. She was willing to give up everything just so that her brother would have a life where he was happy, even if it meant that he hated her. I knew this hurt her.

          “Hunting is a lonely life,” I whisper, rolling over to pull her back into my chest.

          She automatically tangled her fingers with mine and brought our joined hands up to brush a light kiss across my knuckles. The chill from when she pulled away earlier disappeared. “It’s less lonely with you.”

          Thank God for that.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of it all.

**~Dean’s POV~**

          “Y/N?” I stood up to search for her and nearly fell over. The sudden movement made my head swim. Apparently, traveling between timelines like this was just like a bad hangover. It made me wonder why I never felt like this when the Time Wraith sent us to the other timeline.

          But that wasn’t important right now.

          Y/N was.

          “She did it?” Sam’s voice cracked, like it always did right after waking up.

          “We’re here, aren’t we?” I answered testily, still not seeing my wife anywhere.

          A soft noise jerked my head over to the mostly closed bathroom door. I pushed aside the headache that had blossomed and strode to the door in the next moment. Gently pushing the door open, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Y/N on the floor next to the toilet, obviously having just puked. She noticed me and offered a weak smile as she reached up to flush the toilet.

          “Hey baby,” I called softly, crouching down in front of her. I reached over and cupped her cheek in my hand, softly rubbing my thumb over her cheekbone. She covered my hand with her own and leaned into my touch, closing her eyes. Her skin was clammy and there were new bags under her eyes. “You don’t look so good.”

          “Yeah, well, Time Wraiths are despicable beings and being around them is like that moment the alcohol hits all at once after taking ten shots in a row. Or twenty. Or… whatever. It sucks.”

          “But we’re back here so… that means everything worked out in the end, right?” I prayed it wasn’t too much to hope that everything went smoothly for once.

          “Kinda. Let me swish some mouthwash then I’ll tell you guys all about it.” Her eyes darted up to the door where Sam and Crowley were peeking in.

          They retreated back into the room and I reached for both of Y/N’s hands to pull her up. We were all in our clothes from this timeline, but my fingers rubbed against the wedding ring from the other timeline. Shouldn’t the rings have been left behind just like our wedding clothes?

          “Why do we still have our rings? Not that I’m complaining. At all.”

          “Because I drive a hard bargain.” She smiled tiredly at me before turning to the sink and grabbing for the mouthwash. “There’s a lot to tell about what happened there, but I didn’t want to give up the rings. We went through too damn much to lose these.”

          It made no sense that she could pick and choose details that small. Though, I supposed that I had no idea what happened wherever she went, so I couldn’t really form a good opinion yet.

          As soon as she finished rinsing out the mouthwash, she turned around and kissed me, framing my face with her hands. My hands went to her waist, pulling her closer. This was still our wedding day, despite all of the craziness. We  _were_  newlyweds, after all.

          I made a promise to myself in that moment that I would find a few days, soon, when Y/N and I could get away and forget about the timelines and the Titans and whatever else, and we could have a real honeymoon.

          That  _had_  to happen.

          “I love you so much, Dean,” Y/N mumbled against my lips. “No matter what happens after I tell you what happened, I will always love you.”

          “You’re scaring me, Y/N.”

          “A lot happened. I learned a lot. And a lot changed. But hopefully, not too much. It’ll make sense when I tell you.”

          She started walking out of the bathroom, but I couldn’t let her go like that. I pulled her back to me for another kiss. She said a lot had changed, but I knew one thing that never would.

          “I love you too, Y/N. Always will. No matter what you say next, I will  _always_ love you. I meant what I said in my vows. Come Heaven or Hell, I am unconditionally yours.”

          Some of the clouds on her face cleared and she smiled up at me, her body swaying into mine. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

          After another kiss, she led me out to the room where Sam and Crowley were sitting in brooding silence. Their attention swung to Y/N as soon as she sat down on one of the beds, tugging my hand until I sat next to her.

          “The Time Wraith who did this to us is dead.” That was a good start. Hopefully the rest of her tale wouldn’t go downhill. “Me being in that  _between world_  place drew the attention of the other wraiths and they showed up and realized that the bitch had gone rogue, so they killed her.”

          “Just like we hoped,” Crowley interjected, and Y/N nodded.

          “Yeah. But one complication when a Time Wraith dies, is that everything that wraith has changed will revert back to the original events. That’s why Time Wraiths don’t interact with timelines much, except for her, and why they’re so damn hard to kill. If they changed more timelines, I’m sure we would have more information on them, but since they aren’t typically a threat, there’s no need to know how to deal with them, you know?”

          Sam’s forehead was creased and he leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. “So when the other wraiths killed the Time Wraith who did this all, we were sent back here?”

          “Not exactly,” Y/N hedged. “This isn’t even the original timeline.”

          Y/N went on to explain the car crash and the wraith’s altruistic motives. The way events were turned on their head. How the wraith blamed Y/N for some reason.

          “If things had gone back to the very original timeline, then I wouldn’t be here. You guys would still be hunting, probably. But I wouldn’t. My parents would be alive, Ethan would be dead, and I wouldn’t have gone down the road that led me here.”

          “Then why are you here?” Crowley piped up.

          “Because the Time Wraith was right.” Y/N sighed heavily, hesitantly. “I did have something to do with the car crash not turning out how she planned. When she tried to change my timeline, the timeline fought back because technically, I was never supposed to be born.”

          Silence fell. What did that even mean?

          After a minute of letting us process her bombshell, she threw another grenade in. “Changes in timelines don’t react the same to me because I’m not really in a timeline. The wraiths know every single soul in every single timeline. I guess it’s like they have a ledger of people who are supposed to be born. But I’m not on that ledger.”

          “Why not?”

          “Because… because that’s how Time Wraiths are created. When I die, I will turn into a Time Wraith.”

          Well.

          Fuck.

* * *

          “I can’t believe the Time Wraiths let you choose which version of your life you wanted to go to,” I whispered later that night. We’d gotten our own room and were laying in bed. This was our wedding night, but too much had happened, too much weight of death and timelines were crowding around, and we were both just too damn tired to truly enjoy the night.

          It had taken a while to wrap my head around the fact that I was married to a future Time Wraith. Actually, I still hadn’t completely wrapped my head around that. I don’t think Y/N had either.

          “They just don’t want me trying to fuck things up. I don’t have any cool powers until I die, but I guess if I really wanted to, I could still mess around and make their lives hell.” She snuggled closer into my side. “So they let me pick where I wanted to go so I would be happier and less likely to want things to change.”

          “Why this one, though? Your parents are dead. You hunt monsters. You don’t talk to your brother… I don’t get it.”

          Reversing her previous actions, she pulled away from me so that she could meet my eyes. “This is the only timeline where I know you. It might not be what was originally meant to be, but it’s what’s meant to be forever.” She settled back down into my arms, wrapping one of her arms around my waist. “Besides, I promised Ethan I would get him his life back. He has a family in this timeline. He’s happy here.”

          There was a heavy silence, full of the words Y/N left unsaid.

          “You should go talk to him. Try to become a family again.”

          “No.” Her answer was immediate. “I treated him like shit, Dean. When I was on drugs, I lived with him for a few months. I stole from him to buy more drugs. I yelled at him, blamed him for our parents’ deaths. I… I hit him more than once. I… I wasn’t a good person. He probably hates me and I don’t blame him. I don’t want to dredge up any of those memories. He’s happy now, and I’m not going to ruin that.”

          This was new information. I always knew that her relationship was strained with Ethan, but I never knew why. The Y/N that she described when she was on drugs was a complete stranger to me. I couldn’t imagine her hitting anyone that wasn’t trying to kill her.

          “What about you, though? You’re not going to be really happy until you fix your relationship with him. I saw how close you were in the other timeline. You really love him, Y/N. You need him in your life, at least a little.”

          “He’s happy, Dean. I can’t—”

          “Wouldn’t he be happier if he knew that you’re still alive? That you got better? That you still love him and want to fix what you did? That you married the most handsome and loving guy on this planet? If this was me and Sam, I’d want to know.”

          She shifted, rolling over and leaving me cold. “Drop it, Dean. If I talk to him, suddenly he’s a target. I can’t have him  _and_  hunt.”

          The memory of Addy’s body hitting the floor filled the space between us. I knew all too well the kind of threat that associating with hunters brought regular civilians.

          But I also saw how much her family meant to Y/N. She was willing to give up everything just so that her brother would have a life where he was happy, even if it meant that he hated her. I knew this hurt her.

          “Hunting is a lonely life,” I whisper, rolling over to pull her back into my chest.

          She automatically tangled her fingers with mine and brought our joined hands up to brush a light kiss across my knuckles. The chill from when she pulled away earlier disappeared. “It’s less lonely with you.”

          Thank God for that.


End file.
